New Oceanographic Buoy in Portonovo, Ancona
The result of the close collaboration among institutions in the Marche region
ANCONA – On Monday, August 24, the new oceanographic buoy DORY was deployed, installed one mile off the coast near the Portonovo Tower and positioned at a depth of approximately 12 meters. The coordinates are Latitude 43.567830° N, Longitude 13.599020° E. The project stems from an intense scientific collaboration between the CNR-IRBIM of Ancona and the Department of Life and Environmental Sciences of the Marche Polytechnic University (UNIVPM), with contributions from the Municipality of Ancona, the Marche Region, and the Experimental Zooprophylactic Institute of Umbria and Marche (IZSUM). The buoy was manufactured in Italy, weighs around one ton, and is valued at over 180,000 euros funded by the Marche Region. This equipment operates in synergy with UNIVPM’s recent Portonovo Lab. The buoy represents the fourth node of the Marche coastal monitoring network managed by CNR-IRBIM, joining those already active in Fano, Senigallia, and Porto Recanati.
Every 20 minutes, DORY records and transmits a wide range of crucial met-ocean data: marine parameters such as water temperature, salinity, conductivity, density, dissolved oxygen, chlorophyll, wave and current speed and direction; meteorological parameters such as wind speed and direction, humidity, and atmospheric conditions. The buoy is also equipped with a high-definition video camera for continuous acquisition of images and video of the area.
The need for this infrastructure emerged from the Technical Committee established by the Municipality of Ancona to address the crisis facing Portonovo’s wild mussels (mosciolo selvatico). In a summer marked by sharp temperature increases in Adriatic waters, DORY will make it possible to correlate the health status of mussels and biodiversity with the physical and chemical variations of the water. The deployment and activation of the buoy involved the joint commitment of technical and scientific staff from CNR-IRBIM and UNIVPM, in particular the technical head of IRBIM Observational Infrastructures, engineer Pierluigi Penna, and IRBIM colleagues Fabrizio Moro and Giordano Giuliani.
CNR-IRBIM Director Gian Marco Luna stated in this regard: “We are facing a paradigm shift: we must move from a reactive to a proactive approach, monitoring parameters to anticipate emergencies rather than chasing them.” The Rector of the Polytechnic University of Marche, Enrico Quagliarini, emphasized that: “Research and monitoring are the keywords of this historic day for the region. This synergy between institutions, the University, and the CNR will provide concrete responses to the effects of climate change.” The Mayor of Ancona, Daniele Silvetti, also expressed satisfaction with the deployment of the buoy: “This was a primary goal we set for ourselves to protect our wild mussel (mosciolo selvatico). DORY is the concrete result of collaboration between the scientific community and the local administration.”
One of the main innovations of the DORY buoy concerns data transparency and accessibility. The measurements will not be reserved solely for researchers, but will be accessible in real time to all citizens, boaters, and beachgoers by connecting to the CNR-IRBIM web portal under the “Meteo-Marine Observation Network” section. As highlighted by Prof. Francesco Regoli, Director of the Department of Life and Environmental Sciences at UNIVPM, public access to environmental data represents a fundamental step not only for scientific research, but also for raising collective awareness toward the protection of our sea.