To draw up a plan for adapting Spanish aquaculture to climate change. This was the main objective with which the Aquadapt project was launched a few months ago, led by the Campus do Mar and financed by the Biodiversity Foundation, and thanks to which an action plan was presented in Madrid this Tuesday, a whole programme of tasks that will be carried out over the next two years and with which it will be attempted to reduce the vulnerability of the sector to changes resulting from the global increase in air and ocean temperatures. The aim, as indicated by its drafters at the presentation day, is to increase the generation of information on different environmental, economic and social variables and to facilitate its access and availability to different interest groups: R&D&I agents, the business sector and public administrations with competences.
The presentation day was held at the General Secretariat of Fisheries in Madrid and was attended by, among others, the head of the Aquaculture Area, Paloma Carballo, and the deputy director of the Biodiversity Foundation, Ignacio Torres Ruiz. It was also planned that this would be the first public intervention by professor Daniel Rey, as the new director of the Campus do Mar and the Marine Research Center of the University of Vigo (CIM), but, in the end, he was unable to attend due to flight diversions at Peinador airport after the ILS system was disconnected.
“The experts who participated in this project over the last nine months were able to identify the main lines of action that must be put into action. It is very good work, in which the different variables that are identified are applied to examples from different geographical areas, from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean and also for some of the most important species for the sector”, explained Daniel Rey from Vigo, who remarked that “my presence in Madrid was simply to support the researchers, who were the ones who did the work, but in the end it was impossible for me to arrive”.
Three key species: turbot, sea bream and sea bass.
Aquadapt focused on the cultivation of three species (turbot, sea bream and sea bass) and the study covered the two main cultivation systems: land-based facilities in open circuit and floating cages in the sea. “Two case studies were selected, one in Galicia, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, due to its importance in the production of turbot, and the other in the Valencian Community, in the Mediterranean, due to its relevance in the cultivation of sea bass and sea bream”, emphasized the promoters, who also emphasized that the Spanish aquaculture sector has shown, in the opinion of those responsible for the project, its resilience and adaptability in the face of many adverse circumstances and now has the necessary tools to also respond positively to climate change.
Four axes of action
On behalf of the University of Vigo, the technical coordinator of Infrastructures and Research of the Marine Research Center (CIM), Antonio Villanueva, the technical coordinator of innovation and transfer of the CIM, Cristina Quelle, and the manager of the Aquadapt project, Patricia Quintas, participated in the presentation of the plan. They were in charge of detailing the four axes on which the Action Plan is structured. Axis 1 seeks, as they explained, to increase scientific and business sector knowledge about the impact of climate change on the sector; axis 2 seeks to strengthen the regulatory and administrative framework in terms of adaptation to climate change; axis 3, to increase access to sources of financing specifically aimed at the adaptation of the sector to climate change, and axis 4, to increase collaboration between interest groups in the framework of knowledge transfer along the value chain (communication, awareness-raising and sensitization work).
“Within each line, the actions planned to be carried out in the short term are described and their estimated duration, priority, agents involved, deadlines are detailed… As far as possible, an estimate of the results obtained is indicated, as well as monitoring indicators for each action”, highlighted the representatives of the Campus do Mar.
Daniel Rey: “I will put all my effort into the Campus do Mar gaining momentum again”
For Professor Daniel Rey, taking charge of Campus do Mar represents an important step in his professional career, an opportunity to develop ideas regarding how the future of this strategic grouping should be addressed, a project that he refers to as “unique” and that is now facing a new stage, “tremendously difficult, because the funding has already ended and we have to find new sources of income”. In this sense, the new head of Campus do Mar assures that he will try to give continuity to all the projects that are already underway and, for his part, assures that he will put “all my efforts into ensuring that Campus do Mar regains momentum”.
“We will see what can be done, the situation is difficult as funding has disappeared, but we will try to give it new impetus”, insists Rey, who emphasizes that the most important challenges involve developing the University’s participation in ETEA, both in the functionality of the building and in the possibility of developing a summer school in these facilities. “For us, the objective is for Campus do Mar to be a platform to develop and make visible the activities of marine researchers from the University of Vigo and, by extension, of the entire axis that forms Galicia and the north of Portugal”, he emphasized.
Source: DUVI
