With the aim of promoting what is known as the blue economy, while promoting the preservation of marine and ocean resources, experts and companies from around the world met last week in Barcelona within the framework of Tomorrow.Blue Economy, a congress held within the Smart City Expo World Congress. It is not an isolated event: at the end of the month, the Maritime Hub, a forum on marine and maritime innovation, will be held in the Catalan capital. Later, in April, Barcelona will host the UN conference on the Oceans Decade, and in summer, it will host the America's Cup for sailing.
Catalonia, with Barcelona at the forefront, is opening up to an ocean of opportunities. Some of the economic sectors that are coming to the fore are “marine robotics and regenerative or low trophic level aquaculture,” explains Pablo Blou, business development director of the Xarxa Marítima de Catalunya (BlueNetCat), made up of 67 groups of research from seven institutions, universities and research centers. Several of these groups are developing underwater robot projects that improve their performance and autonomy to expand functionalities and be able to offer new services. On the other hand, the cultivation of algae for food with a positive environmental impact is one of the experiences in low trophic level aquaculture in which they are working.
Blou also highlights that “the use of data and new technologies have great potential to improve management” and gives as an example the Catalan Research Institute for the Government of the Sea (Ictamar), which carries out a monitoring program of both recreational and commercial fishing along the Catalan coast, and a program of observation, analysis and prediction of the physical characteristics of the sea.
According to the latest report The blue economy in Catalonia, from the Department of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda, the three main emerging sectors within this area are: desalination, maritime activity centers (nautical academies, immersion centers and nautical) and recreational fishing. The report predicts that the economy around desalination plants will increase considerably in the coming years due to the current drought context. As for the centers of maritime activities, the celebration of the America's Cup is being quite a shock, as demonstrated at the Barcelona International Boat Show, which took place a month ago.
Offshore wind is another of the sectors called to be protagonists in the blue economy. “It is renewable marine energy. In Catalonia, different options are being studied in the two locations where it is viable,” says the business development director of BlueNetCat. These locations are Empordà and the Ebro delta.
The Generalitat is finalizing a proposal, which must still be agreed upon with the local world, to include more non-economic criteria in the auctions that the State plans to carry out to award wind exploitation in the Catalan maritime space. "We must convert the wind use of the Catalan maritime space into an opportunity to develop the local industry and, at the same time, mitigate possible impacts that may be generated in other sectors," declared last week the minister of the Department of Climate Action, Food. i Rural Agenda, David Mascort, during a visit to an offshore wind farm in Portugal, within the framework of a joint mission with the Portuguese Government for the exchange of knowledge and projects in the field of the blue economy and marine policy.
