Mission of the NRP Admiral Gago Coutinho

The mission to maintain the hydrographic institute's network of buoys and, at the same time, the first sampling campaign of the AQUIMAR project, aboard the hydro-oceanographic ship NRP Almirante Gago Coutinho, will run until November 4, 2018.

Technical teams from the Hydrographic Institute and divers of the Navy boarded the ship NRP Almirante Gago Coutinho to carry out the maintenance of the wave and multiparametric buoys belonging to the Integrated System of Environmental Monitoring of the Portuguese Exclusive Economic Zone (MONIZEE), which currently comprises seven buoys along the zone coast of Portugal. The periodic maintenance of the buoys is essential to maintain the operation of the sensors and the real-time transmission of meteorological and oceanographic parameters. Due to its complexity, this operation requires specialized media and teams.

At the same time, CTD profiles (conductivity, temperature and pressure) and sampling of water and sediment will be carried out under the AQUIMAR project - Marine Knowledge Supporting Aquaculture, funded by the Mar2020 Program. The objective of this project is to characterize the oceanographic, physical-chemical (including contaminants), geochemical and biological conditions to optimize the selection of aquaculture units, based on the areas already defined in the Maritime Space. This mission will also have the participation of a scientist from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon.