The Sociedad de Salvamento y Seguridad Maritima- SASEMAR

The Sociedad de Salvamento y Seguridad Marítima- SASEMAR (the Maritime Safety and Rescue Agency) is a Spanish public authority working under the Spanish Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda through the Directorate of Merchant Marine. Created in 1992 by the Law of State Ports and the Merchant Marine, SASEMAR became operative in 1993.

Its mission is to ensure the protection of human life at sea, as well as the pollution prevention and response, being also in charge of maritime traffic control and training.

The challenge

Spain has about 8,000 kilometres coastline and a rescue area that extends up to three times the size of its national territory. It is divided into four zones: Atlantic, Strait, Mediterranean and Canary Islands.

One of the major threats for coastal regions is represented by oil spills and illegal discharges from ships. The consequences of these incidents on marine environment could be catastrophic, endangering aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity for long periods. In fact, due to the composition of most oil pollutants, oil spills tend to remain on water surface while spreading in large areas carried by currents reaching, sometimes, coasts with significant impacts on economic sectors such as fishery and tourism.

The Prestige oil spill incident occurred in November 2002 off Galicia’s coasts, underlined the importance of a fast response to a pollution-related incident to contain the contamination and the potential damages both at environmental and economic level.

Figure 1. Prestige Oil Spill Incident. Source: European Space Agency (ESA)

The satellite solution

SASEMAR developed a preparedness and response system that combines marine, and air unites to map the incident’s area. SAR operators run trajectory models to predict the drift induced by the effect of ocean currents, waves, and winds and to define the search area. The accuracy of a drift prediction is highly dependent on met-ocean forecast’s data used to predict the trajectory model. Therefore, SAR operators need reliable methods to assess, within the shortest possible time, which model is likely to provide the most accurate prediction.

The IBISAR service simulates the trajectories using available forecast models in a specific time and location. The simulated trajectories are then compared with the real drifters and the ocean models are scored based on their performance.

Figure 2. Snapshot of the IBISAR service – How it works? Source: IBISAR. IBISAR service is generated using E.U. Copernicus Marine Service Information

IBISAR relies on multiple datasets including satellite-tracked surface drifters, high-frequency radar data combined with ocean models from the Copernicus Marine Service and complementary databases, that provide information on the surface currents at high spatial-temporal resolution in coastal areas. In addition to real-time satellite tracking for the surface drifters, satellite technology is used to assess and improve the ocean models integrated in the service. IBISAR consists of a web-based platform composed of a database; the OceansMap Viewer, a customisable GIS-based graphical user interface; and the Skills Assessment functionality that helps the user in verifying the models’ accuracy.

The IBISAR Skill Assessment service allows the visualization, comparison, and evaluation of model performance in the Iberia-Biscay-Ireland (IBI) regional seas. It is a science and satellite-based downstream service launched in 2019 coordinated by the Balearic Island Coastal Observing and Forecasting System (SOCIB) in partnership with AZTI and RPS Ocean Science and with the collaboration of the Spanish Port System. IBISAR provides user-oriented skill metrics to evaluate the accuracy of Search and Rescue models, helping coastal authorities, to identify the most accurate ocean current dataset in a specific area and period of interest improving search and rescue and pollution control operations.

The results

SASEMAR though the introduction of IBISAR achieved its goal to increase the preparedness and reaction in case of an emergency at sea of its operators. By selecting the most accurate data, SASEMAR optimises its response’s time to maritime emergencies, benefiting from a single access point to multiple datasets served in a user-friendly platform.

IBISAR supports SASEMAR and emergency responders to improve SAR and pollution control operations, by minimizing its response time, optimizing the search area planning, while contributing to a cleaner and safer seas and coasts.

The post Supporting emergency response on the Spanish Coasts: the IBISAR service appeared first on Eurisy.

Chamonix, France was home to the 2018 International Commission for Alpine Rescue’s (ICAR) global conference this October, gathering 300 mountain rescuers from 37 countries. Rescuers, from as far as New Zeeland attended the event, as ICAR brings together 109 member organisations from all over the world to share the latest knowledge and technologies of mountain rescue. Celebrating 70 years of activity, the Commission connects expertise and knowledge into 4 technical groups: Air Rescue, Avalanche Rescue, Alpine Emergency Medicine and Terrestrial Rescue. Together they work to produce standards and policy recommendations to improve the security of rescuers and victims alike. In their own words, ICAR’s mission is to disseminate “learning from each other to improve mountain rescue and public safety”.

The four days event was rich in presentation and workshops on topics ranging from rope standards to avalanche rescue systems, recommendation on prevention of rock climbing accidents, cable clamps, air rescue study cases and more. An intense learning curve for us untrained urban dwellers, for whom the complexity of equipment and training behind rescue operations remains largely unperceived. To bring satellite-based services into play, Eurisy was joined by representatives from Iridium and Mobit Telecom for a hands-on outdoor workshop in the Italian Alps. The presented solutions included Iridium’s satellite communication connected devices and Mobit’s wrist-worn satellite personal location beacon (PLB) developed within Sinsin, a Horizon2020-GSA funded project.

Like many other communities, mountain rescuers share common challenges and needs. An avalanche poses similar threats and consequences, whether it happens in the mountains in the US, in Canada or the Alps. Time constraints in finding lost, missing or injured people in the wilderness or lightly populated areas, no matter the season or weather condition, are similar across borders and continents. Every minute counts in these critical environments. At times, minutes can turn into days for search and rescue teams and each mission requires considerable team planning, coordination and equipment. In many cases, the length of such missions is driven by one key information factor – the emergency caller’s location. 

An accurate caller location in case of an emergency is one of the most significant pieces of information an emergency call-taker can use. And here is where satellites come in. With the exception of a handful of EU countries and New Zeeland, an emergency caller’s location is in most cases, determined and communicated to Public Safety Answering Points (or PSAPs) by local mobile operators based on their cell towers. The information is quick to obtain but this typically returns a large search area which can vary anywhere from 100 m to 40-50 km, depending on the tower’s location. Interestingly, when it comes to public perceptions on emergency calls, there is a considerable gap between expectations and reality. According to the GNSS 2017 Market Report, while citizens expect a location accuracy of 5-10 m, the current emergency location solutions available in EU Member States using mobile cell or sector ID are not even close to those numbers. And in emergency situations, this wide spectrum of accuracy can be a determining factor for a mission’s success. 

In Europe, despite the existence of legislation to mandate accuracy and reliability targets for locating emergency calls, no member state has set any. In 2018, Europe’s civilian satellite navigation system, Galileo has become operational with 26 satellites currently in orbit, thus greatly adding to improving accuracy for emergency response-services. According to the EU funded Help112 project, improved emergency caller location could save 800 lives annually and up to €100 billion over the next decade. And the technology to turn these finding into facts is already here. Meet AML! 

In a nutshell, Advanced Mobile Location (or AML) recognises when an emergency call is made from your smartphone and, if not already activated, activates the phone’s GNSS to collect the caller’s location information. Since July 2016 and respectively, spring 2018, both Android and Iphone operating systems are automatically AML enabled. Thanks to AML which relies on GNSS and handsets, location accuracy can be improved to as low as 50 metres. Moreover, where operational, 90% of location information arrives within 30 seconds of the network location being provided. Users don’t need to install any apps, nor make any updates to their phones. In addition, the European Emergency Number Association (EENA) estimates that implementation costs for PSAPs are negligible. Where implemented, the change has had a significant impact on search and rescue operations, as one ICAR attendant (one of the very few present aware of AML) explained to us.

Yet, despite this technology being readily available for deployment across the EU, only 11 countries have implemented it fully or partially. Current national legislations on handling emergency calls (which is a competency pertaining to local governments) are at the heart of this legislative hurdle. On their side, EENA has been working on raising awareness with local governments for quite some time now, but extensive ground still needs to be covered. Alongside rescue communities, the space sector can and should play a role in taking these user needs to decision makers and their constituencies. As such, in 2019 we’ll be aiming to further work across user rescue communities, partner organisations and the space sector to support AML take up. Stay tuned!

The post The tech solution that can revolutionise search and rescue. Yet remains unknown to most appeared first on Eurisy.