SeaCras: Croatian startup monitors water quality of coastal areas
Just about a week ago we celebrated World Water Day. Held on 22 March every year since 1993, World Water Day honors water and raises awareness of the 2 billion people living without access to safe water. As part of the movement, we shared with you 8 startups that work towards saving and purifying water.
The Croatian startup SeaCras is another project that offers a blue economy solution. Just a hint: The blue economy is the counterpart of the green economy when it comes to the exploitation of the oceans and regional seas. The blue economy sets a strong emphasis on sustainability, in terms of economic growth and ecosystem balance of oceans and regional seas.
SeaCras provides AI-based analysis of high-resolution satellite data for high-fidelity and accuracy water quality monitoring of coastal areas. The Croatian startup transforms the monitoring service into a tool for raising awareness of the target population about water quality. The attractive user interface comes in a form of website plug-in, Android and iOS applications.
The solution improves visibility and boosts bookings and revenues, by highlighting the footprint and caring for the aquatic environment. The startup pays attention to four keep aspects that impact the quality of water in seas and oceans: coastal urbanization, inland water bodies, aquaculture, and tourism.
Dr. Mario Špadina, CEO of SeaCras, explains the issue with coastal urbanization in the following way:
“Today, coastal waters are the areas where the most extensive blue economy activities take place and are under the greatest anthropogenic stress. Rising eutrophication levels, degradation of biodiversity, and harmful algal blooms are just some of the main issues.”
Bulgarian EnduroSat plans to launch a space weather satellite in 2022
There are plenty of invisible problems related to water quality: Unlike oceans and seas, inland water bodies have significantly lower auto-purification properties. Due to the high anthropogenic impact, such as wastewater discharge or minerals and nutrients inflow by nearby agriculture, many inland water bodies are dealing with severe eutrophication. With the majority of the world’s tourism being directed towards the coastal areas, the great challenge for the sustainability of this branch of the economy is to ensure the high quality of water.
Satelite imaginary and Earth observation would be helpful tools for battling these challenges. To meet the ambitious criteria set by EU Commission within The Water Framework Directive, and the European Green Deal, scalable digital solutions for water quality monitoring with low carbon emissions are necessary, adds Dr. Mario Špadina.
SeaCras was among the finalists of the elite BlueInvest 2022 programme that took place in Brussels yesterday.
“After Startup Factory, we joined BlueInvest Readiness Assistance, a programme established by the European Commission to further develop the blue economy. It is an exclusive mentoring programme for startups and high-potential projects that have innovative and sustainable solutions for the blue economy. The fact that we entered the programme of the sixth cycle of BlueInvest as the only project from Croatia is a huge success,” shares Tomislav Stolar, co-founder and marketing director of SeaCras, for Poslovni Dnevnik.
SpaceX and OroraTech send first forest fire monitoring satellite into space
