Successful BLUERISM project start in Toulouse

Toulouse, France – The BLUERISM project has started with a highly productive stakeholder engagement meeting in Toulouse, bringing together CLS, EOMAP, Novaspace and the European Space Agency (ESA) project team. This marks an important milestone in the project that works on use cases that leverage Earth Observation (EO) technologies to monitor and mitigate environmental challenges affecting the Blue Economy.

The BLUERISM initiative works on advanced EO-based use cases that support sustainable leisure and tourism activities, raise awareness of environmental sustainability and reduce impacts on coastal ecosystems. By integrating EO satellite data, AI-driven analysis and predictive modelling, the explored use cases will provide real-time insights to support decision-making for coastal resilience, marine ecosystem conservation and tourism sustainability.

ESA’s role and vision
The presence of the ESA project management team reinforced the alignment of the project with ESA’s wider commitment to environmental sustainability. ESA representatives emphasised the importance of innovative EO-based solutions to address pressing marine challenges and expressed confidence in BLUERISM’s potential to drive impactful changes in coastal resilience strategies.

BLUERISM use cases
The BLUERISM project is structured around four key use cases:
Mucilage – Providing coastal authorities and beach managers with early warnings of harmful mucilage formation.
Sargassum – Assisting hotels and resorts with real-time tracking and predictive modelling of sargassum influx to manage its impact on tourism and the marine environment.
Macroplastic – Helping coastal authorities and beach managers track and mitigate plastic pollution through AI-enabled detection.
Water quality – Providing EO-derived water quality indicators for diving associations and water sports enthusiasts to ensure optimal conditions for underwater activities.

Next steps and future engagement
Following the successful meeting in Toulouse, the BLUERISM project will now move towards designing and implementing the services of each use case. The project team will work closely with stakeholders to ensure that the system meets real-world needs and maximises the benefits of EO data for coastal sustainability.
The project team is still looking for users to partner with, so get involved and reach out to the team!
For more information and updates on the BLUERISM project, stay connected with our partners and ESA’s official communication channels.