Read the third MARCIS Newsletter for project progress and highlights.
Dear reader,
The new year has started off very busy for the MARCIS project, with preparations for the two most important meetings of the year: the annual project meeting and the stakeholder meeting. This year both meetings were held physically, and it was wonderful to meet almost all MARCIS participants in person! We had many important discussions about synergies and coordination, future developments in offshore industrial activities, and improvements for further collaboration. We also spent a good chunk of time on looking at the MARCIS App specifically and discussing its functionality and future development. Many of these discussions play a central role in what we are working on over the next months.
For those of you that have been following our website, you will have seen various stories about work that has been going on since the last newsletter, for example about how avian radar is used in the project, and what kind of novel marine activities are likely to show up in offshore areas in the coming years. A map of the MARCIS study area is now also visible on our main page so that everyone can see what areas the MARCIS App will be covering.
There has also been an initiative to develop an early demo version of the MARCIS app using a potential offshore wind farm area, Trollvind, as a case study. This Equinor-funded add-on project was initiated to test how MARCIS can contribute as a marine spatial planning tool in a specific case. We are also currently working on a short film to communicate the relevance and usage of the MARCIS tool. The film will introduce the aims of MARCIS and its App to a wider audience and should be ready to coincide with the end of the add-on project in June.
Aside from finishing up the Trollvind add-on project, we are very busy this spring with the development of the tool and modelling the seabird's sensitivity to the different stressors. We will also be working on improving the information flow between work packages and project participants, with particular focus on the main discussion points from the stakeholder meeting. We hope to start up a seminar series that will serve as an arena to exchange information between project participants and meet the specific needs of stakeholders. Stay tuned!
Best wishes,
Tone Kristin Reiertsen (MARCIS project leader)
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