Waste management for the improvement of port waters
Our future development will depend on Blue Growth and the crucial role of ports. Reconciling the need for growth with the preservation of the cultural and environmental heritage will be the challenge to face. The evaluation of impacts and pressures on ecosystems brought by human activities must be developed on a solid scientific/technical basis, as suggested by the most modern management approaches, such as Ecosystem-Based Management. Following this approach and with the awareness that the environmental quality of a port affects the marine environment on a vast scale, the pollution risk must be managed on a cross-border basis. GEREMIA proposes the general objective to train and support those who will be responsible for managing port waters with innovative tools and solutions. The harmonisation of the results of modelling, monitoring and analysis of risk management procedures will lead to the preparation of a Decision Support System for port companies easy to export to different contexts, in addition to the pilot sites of the project. Managing different levels of information and a large amount of data, the DSS will represent a significant increase in operator capacity for prevention and intervention in the event of emergencies. The project will propose management strategies that will be applied to pilot actions in several of our ports (installation of bioremediation and wastewater containment systems, intervention drills). Furthermore, the project will develop a proposal for a new integrated and weighted environmental quality index to complement TRIX, more suitable for specific port conditions.