The Civil Defense launched a buoy that monitors the sea situation in Roses, Cambrils and Mataró

2024-08-25 10:01:02

GironaEvery summer, every bathing season, more than a dozen fatal accidents are reported on Catalan beaches. In order to try to reduce this number of drownings as much as possible, Civil Protection, in addition to making an effort to send constant messages to bathers to take measures, is also working with various actions around the coast of Catalonia. One of them is a pilot test of a buoy with electronic sensors that monitors the sea condition and has just been installed in Roses, Mataró and Cambrils.

The device, created by a research team from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and the Safe and Clean Roads company, attaches to the beacons that mark the boundaries between the boats and the baths, and has a battery Autonomy of three or four months, enough for the whole campaign summer. It is the size of a mobile phone and collects data on wave height, wind or water temperature, which is sent to an external server every 30 minutes. The Civil Protection will evaluate their need until October, to decide if next year they will be installed in large numbers on all beaches.

At this time, the Generalitat has started the test on the beaches with the lifeguards, so that the lifeguards, based on the data sent by the buoy, can have more information to decide whether to move the red, yellow or the green flag and, in the same. time, they can know for sure if the information emitted by the sensors according to the assessment made from the ground. “The idea is that the parameters are a system that can help to assess the state of the coasts. We need to finish confronting it with reality to assess its change, but we suspect that it will be a very useful aid”, He defended Imma Solé, deputy director of the Joint Border Protection and Emergency Management.

A useful tool, but not foolproof, on unsupervised beaches

If it works as planned, the intention is, in addition to monitored beaches, to install these marine sensors on beaches or reefs without lifeguards. The data recorded now is not public, but the intention is that it will be available to the public and that the buoys will become a kind of traffic light that decides independently of the flag of the most distant region or at least the shower area, where boards cannot be made. send a surveillance service. “In these situations they will be very profitable, because the buoy itself can have a system to assess whether the bath is dangerous or not and people will be able to contact it or see what the traffic light is,” explained Solé. However, while it can be a very useful tool to prevent drowning, the buoy does not, therefore, guarantee the same level of protection as an expert lifeguard, because, for example, it does not detect the presence of jellyfish or have information about the forecast storm or bad weather.

Therefore, above all, even with intelligent buoys or lifeguards, the Civil Defense emphasizes the message of common sense and common sense: “We want to swim in the sea and it is very good for our health, but also is to Know that it has some risks and we need to understand, because it is not our own area,” concluded Solé.