📋 Tender Overview
Cyanobacteria are microscopic organisms found naturally in all types of water. In warm, nutrient-rich (high in phosphorus and nitrogen) environments, cyanobacteria can multiply quickly, creating blooms that spread across the water’s surface. The blooms can produce toxines, the cyanotoxines, that affect the water quality and can be harmful for humans, animals and the environment, including allergic–like reactions, flu– like symptoms and gastroenteritis in the case of humans. Nowadays the methods for detection of cyanoblooms are mainly based on insitu collection of samples and analysis at laboratory level which limit the early detection of these blooms due to the insufficient sampling frequencies. There exist other initiatives to support the decision-making for drinking water management such as satellite remote sensing, fluorescence-based probes and drones. However, these tools need to be equipped with advanced imaging solutions (i.e multispectral, hyperspectral) to reach the precision needed. Moreover, they need to be complemented with analytical methods to determine the actual toxicity of the blooms. The WHO recommends introducing molecular methods for the monitoring of toxigenic cianobacteria. CYANOBLOOM project aims to demonstrate a solution for early detection of toxic cyanobacteria blooms in public water supply reservoirs through a combination of remote monitoring (i.e by means of data retrieved from public and private satellites) and on-site measurements (i.e hyperspectral field measurements with genetic analysis of collected samples). As a result, the chance of timely identifying a bloom will be increased from the current 0.82-1,11% to up to 90%.The new solution will be tested in four water reservoirs located in ES (2), SE and NL
