Shellfish Safety – The PRIMROSE project

The Project

The marine aquaculture sector is a major industry along Europe’s Atlantic Arc. Its continued sustainable growth is required to meet an increasing demand for farmed finfish and shellfish. However, such expansion faces several challenges:

1

A few species of the microscopic algae on which shellfish feed have the potential to produce natural biotoxins. When conditions are favourable, these organisms can rapidly increase in abundance generating a harmful algal bloom (HAB). Shellfish can concentrate biotoxins within their flesh presenting a serious health risk to human consumers.

2

Blooms of other harmful species have a damaging effect on farmed fish though deoxygenation, toxicity or damage to gills.

3

Microbial pathogens such as Vibrio or Ecoli can also accumulate in bivalves, with gastrointestinal health implications for anyone who consumes contaminated shellfish.

HAB events are spatially and temporally variable. Europe’s aquaculture industry requires early warning of these events to allow their best possible mitigation.

The Interreg Atlantic Area funded project PRIMROSE is builds on the existing HAB forecasting systems developed within the award winning FP7 funded project “ASIMUTH”.

PRIMOSE will deliver improved forecasts of HABs, microbial risks and climate impacts in aquaculture locations the length of Europe’s Atlantic Arc from the Shetland Islands in the north to the Canary Islands in the South.

The project will use a combination of technologies including the OLCI system flying on board the new Sentinel 3 satellites that provide increased remote sensing resolution for aquaculture production areas in Ireland, Scotland England, France, Spain and Portugal.

The transnational cooperation within PRIMROSE will allow best practises and methodologies to be shared among the partners, with the development of a common web based gateway for risk assessment in the region including an easily understood “traffic light” risk index for industry.