Galicia is located at the northern limit of one of the four most important coastal upwelling systems in the world, and is known for its high marine productivity, which has supported for years an intense fishing and aquaculture exploitation. Knowledge of the seabeds of the rías is therefore of great interest, both from a scientific and an economic point of view. In this regard, and over the last years, the Galician Universities, the Spanish Institute of Oceanography of Vigo and the Marine Research Institute of Vigo have been developing an intense research program focused on the study of the rías (resources, dynamics, sedimentology, etc.). Due to the particular interest of the Ría de Vigo, the second largest ría in Galicia, the laboratory The BITES decided to establish, in collaboration with ECIMAT, the first marine observatory in Spain in the Ría de Vigo.
The objective of this observatory is to be a first-hand witness to the change that the marine ecosystem is undergoing in the face of continuous environmental alterations. To this end, it is necessary to know the physiognomy and structure of the ecosystem through continuous sampling over time and the creation of an adequate and powerful database.
The Bites Lab established in the Ría de Vigo three sampling points located on the North coast, which are evaluated on a monthly basis by volunteers recently trained at ECIMAT in the Reef Life Survey (RLS) technique www.reeflifesurvey.com. This technique is internationally used by the biodiversity study network and is based on non-intrusive sampling of shallow rocky bottoms through the use of photographic techniques using scuba diving equipment. The results will be entered into the RLS database, constituting a long-term record of the biodiversity and condition of our Ría.
