AQUASPECT (Advancing Quality Assessment of Spatial Patterns and Ecosystem Characteristics through Technological Advancements) is a three-year research and innovation project (2025–2028) funded by the Sustainable Blue Economy Partnership (SBEP), grant agreement No. SBEP2024-812.
The project addresses a critical gap in ocean monitoring: while physical and biogeochemical properties of the ocean can now be measured at fine spatial and temporal scales, the biological component, particularly plankton, remains severely undersampled. AQUASPECT closes this gap by developing and commercialising the UVP6m, a novel underwater imaging sensor that extends the size range of in situ plankton observations down to 10 µm, complementing the established UVP6 instrument.
The UVP6m and UVP6 are deployed alongside other quantitative imaging tools at three contrasting European monitoring sites: the Balearic Sea, the Belgian North Sea, and the southwestern Baltic Sea. The high-frequency, high-resolution biological data collected are integrated into regional and EU-level Digital Twins of the Ocean (DTOs) through automated data pipelines, enabling the calculation of ecosystem health indicators relevant to EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and HELCOM reporting.
AQUASPECT is coordinated by Sorbonne University (France), with partners GEOMAR (Germany), VLIZ (Belgium), SOCIB (Spain), Hydroptic (France), and WISIP (France).