Title: Mediterranean Decision Support System for Marine Safety (MEDESS-4MS)
Start date: 31 January 2012
End date: 31 January 2015
Coordinator: Prof. Aldo Drago
Mediterranean Decision Support System for Marine Safety (MEDESS-4MS) is dedicated to the strengthening of maritime safety by mitigating the risks and impacts associated to oil spills. MEDESS-4MS capitalises on existing pan-European frameworks and embraces recent advances and important developments in oceanography in the Mediterranean area. MEDESS-4MS aims to deliver an integrated operational multi model oil spill system in the Mediterranean by gathering and analysing met-ocean data as well as data related to ship traffic, ship operations and sensitivity mapping. This data will be provided to well established oil spill monitoring and forecasting systems, thus, providing an invaluable tool regarding the early detection and efficient control of the oil spill at early stages.
Therefore, MEDESS-4MS aims to offer a comprehensive and integrated multi-model approach regarding our response to oil spills at sea; an approach that takes into account all three important aspects related to marine pollution, that is, Prevention, Detection and Control. The beneficiary countries of MEDESS-4MS are Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Montenegro and Spain.
Please note that the website was developed within a project conducted by what was then the Physical Oceanography Unit (PO-Unit) within IOI-Malta Operational Centre, hence the references to these entities. As of April 2015, the PO-Unit joined the Department of Geosciences within the Faculty of Science of the University of Malta. The same services are now being offered by the Physical Oceanography Research Group (PO-Res.Group) within this Department.