Workshop Sargassum and Oil Spills Monitoring Pilot Project for the Caribbean Sea & Adjacent Regions
2 – 4 May 2018, Mexico
In response to the growing challenges from oil spills and Sargassum influx in the Caribbean Sea, 40 experts from 15 countries discussed monitoring of these maritime hazards in the Caribbean and Adjacent countries. The participants included representatives from various United Nations entities, academia, governments, private companies and international initiatives. The workshop was organized by IOCARIBE of IOC UNESCO and its Global Ocean Observing System Regional Alliance, IOCARIBE-GOOS, and the GEO Blue Planet Initiative, and hosted by the Ministry of Education of Mexico and Mexico National Council of Sciences.
The overarching goal of the workshop was to develop a plan for the development of a region-wide system for monitoring and forecasting oil spills and Sargassum presence. At the workshop, experts reviewed the existing technologies and challenges for monitoring and forecasting oil spills and Sargassum and drafted a plan to create an information system based on existing efforts.
The outcome of the workshop is the creation of an information service with a publicly available monitoring platform and alert system for oil spills and Sargassum based on publicly available data from satellite and in-situ observations.
