Oceancast

The Municipality of Kavala presents Oceancast, a system adapted to modern coastal zone management requirements, innovative and ground-breaking as it is the first system for monitoring sea and atmospheric conditions in real time operated by a Municipality. Oceancast collects real-time data and forecasts for the sea and the atmosphere: a) from international databases (e.g., Copernicus, EMODnet and NOAA Systems), b) from stations monitoring sea conditions (Pali and Perigiali Stations), and c) Panagia weather station. The data is transferred to the server of the Municipality of Kavala for further processing, analysis, production of statistical indicators and visualization so that it is possible to continuously inform the citizens as well as the authorities responsible for the management.

The Oceancast system will be able to effectively contribute to addressing the coastal zone management problems faced by the Municipality of Kavala, such as:

coastal erosion, especially the coasts of high tourist interest,

the appearance of eutrophication phenomena and excessive growth of phytoplankton in the sea, as a consequence of the continuous and increased supply of nutrient salts to the coastal sea,

extreme storms that transport high wave energy towards the coastline causing damage to coastal structures,

the safety of fishermen (professionals and amateurs), of maritime passenger transport, but also of tourists who rent pleasure boats,

the imminent operation of a watercourse in the outer area of ​​the Port of Kavala,

the knowledge of currents to understand the mechanisms of pollutant transport, e.g., microplastics, oil spills, etc.

At the same time, the proposed action is directly linked to the better design of the coastal technical works that will necessarily be built in the coming years to deal with the consequences of Climate Change.

Oceancast is a technologically modern pilot project, based on the Internet of Things and Big Data Analytics, which will demonstrate the importance and necessity of operational data management and immediate citizen information.