Research and Innovation Projects

• Lecture and drafting of a series of volumes of Recommendations for Maritime Works, ROM (0.0, 1.0, 1.1).
• Gestión del riesgo asociado a la erosión e inundación en un escenario de cambio climático y la toma de decisiones sobre concesiones en el dominio público marítimo-terrestre.
• Trabajos estudio de inundación y erosión en zonas costeras de Andalucía en un escenario de cambio climático.
• Wave agitation and resonance in the inner basin of Malaga’s harbor.
• 3D experiments of the exterior breakwater of the enlargement of Gijón’s harbor.
• Assessment of the impact of floating docks in the morphodyncamics of the Guadalete river mouth.
• Wave agitation and resonance in the inner basin of Ceuta’s harbor.
• Impact of the dispersion of a waste water spill in a highly protected area (Inner Bay of Cadiz).
• Evolution of Valdevaqueros’ Dune.
• New container terminal in Cádiz’ harbor – 3D experiments of the S-shaped breakwater.
• Generation and evolution of bed forms in the shoaling zone of reflective beaches.
• Laboratory experiments of the esplanade of Aboño at Gijón’s harbor. 
• Study of wind loads on photovoltaic panels.
• Laboratory experiments for the analysis of the stability of the filling at the south part of the exterior breakwater of Almeria’s harbor.
• Design, monitoring and modeling of the pilot experiment of the restoration of a tidal creek in Guadalete river saltmarsh. 
• UNDIGEN: Study of Ocean Wave Energy Extraction.
• Study of Coastal Floods and Erosion Hazards under a Climate Change Scenario in Andalusia, Spain

Tides play a fundamental role in oceanic, coastal and estuarine hydro-morphodynamics. Their mixing intensity is fundamental to the generation of large-scale ocean circulation, they partly control morphological changes in the coastline, and they transport suspended matter with important consequences on marine ecosystems. This project is a project looking at the influence of stratification on the formation of amphidromic points in real semi-enclosed ocean basins.

The main objective of project is to increase the understanding of tidal propagation in the ocean and coastal seas. Specifically, this project aims to evaluate with an idealized mathematical model the conditions of formation of amphidromic systems, both barotropic and internal, induced by the tide in situations where the water column presents a high stratification, i.e., when establishing a two-layer flow is possible.

Coastal flooding is among the most dangerous and costly natural hazards. There are several reasons why the consequences of this hazard are so catastrophic. On the one hand, flooding events are often due to the interaction of multivariate drivers (compound events), such as precipitation, river discharge, tides, storm surges and waves, which are often caused by a common meteorological forcing and exacerbate the effects. On the other hand, the risk to human life is intensified by the fact that more than 50% of the population is concentrated in the coastal zone. Regarding climate change, flooding impact is greatly affected, firstly, because average sea-level rise directly increases the risk; secondly, the flooding drivers are also altered, e.g., the increase in the frequency and the intensification of extreme precipitation events. Besides, rapid erosion due to extreme storms or long-term erosion due to climate change trends, modifies the coastline altering compound flooding consequences making it necessary to incorporate morphological changes in the modelling process. Therefore, the purpose of this project is to advance on the estimation of compound flooding at two spatial scales: regional and local, and two different time periods: short-term forecast and long-term projections of climate change, trying to open new climate services related with this impact and include socio-economic consequences to assess risk.

EPICOS project proposes a prospective study -on a time scale of decades- of eco-morpho-hydrodynamic evolutionary trends of estuaries. Management strategies will be proposed within the (already restrictive) legal-environmental framework. These strategies will be effective, creative and sustainable and will be aimed at improving the environmental status of the estuarine system, either by taking advantage of the opportunities provided by natural changes, or by low-invasive actions that mitigate the predicted impacts and help to improve the adaptation and resilience of the estuary. This study will be carried out in the Guadalquivir estuary, as a characteristic estuary of high socio-economic relevance and ecological potential, which has been identified as one of the most vulnerable estuaries of the Iberian Peninsula to global change. Should the degree of anthropization of the Guadalquivir increases, it could reach a collapse that would be difficult to reverse. EPICOS project faces this challenge at a time when the window of opportunity is open and the time to act is reduced.

Coastal erosion threatens the planet’s shores, and human activity plays a crucial role in disrupting sediment transport along the coast. This disruption occurs both from the land, by obstructing or extracting aggregates from rivers, and from the sea, by limiting the longshore flow with infrastructures. The project “Preliminary Diagnosis of Sedimentary Balance on the European Continental Coast” (AUDITOR) aims to conduct a preliminary diagnosis of the sedimentary balance on the European continental coast. The study leverages the most current bathymetry and relies on the characteristics of the local seabed sediment to evaluate the average and most energetic potential longitudinal and cross-shore transport by sections along the coastline. The diagnosis of these results broadly characterizes the sedimentary dynamics and allows for the identification of regions with sediment deficits.

Marine energy is one of the levers for energy transformation in the medium and long term at global level, as well as an industrial, economic and social opportunity. In addition, green hydrogen is considered as the key sustainable solution for the decarbonization of the economy. Green hydrogen is obtained from renewable electricity using water through electrolysis process. Hydrogen is being considered as a future alternative for power transformation and storage. Europe is currently developing roadmaps to achieve a first target of 55% emissions reduction by 2030 and decarbonization of the continent by 2050. This project focuses on the study of wave energy transformation, green hydrogen generation for energy management and the impacts on renewability and sustainability from a thermo-economic standpoint.

Estuaries are ecosystems with high ecological, biological and socio-economic value. In many estuaries the contribution of sediment-attached biomass (mostly benthic microalgae or microphytobenthos, MPB) to primary production is relatively higher than that of free phytoplankton production. The overall objective of MUDDY project is to systematically and reliably estimate the contribution of MPB biofilms to the primary production to the Guadalquivir estuary. The aim is to quantify the surface extent of these biofilms in this estuary. These biofilms, in general, cover variable extensions along the margins. In order to understand the variability of the MPB it is necessary to study its physico-chemical behaviour under a series of physical forcings common in the estuary: river flow, density-driven flow, tides, availability of light in the water column as a function of turbidity and extreme random events such as wind or discharges and punctual contributions of the rivers to the estuary.

The demand for data and spatiotemporal series has led to the exponential growth of databases dedicated to recording climatic information, both atmospheric and maritime. This development has facilitated access to global, regional, and local databases at different spatial and temporal scales. Furthermore, in the past decade, the use of probabilistic models to simulate future conditions in all areas and sectors of society has become widespread. The information obtained from these applications allows for objective decision-making from a multicriteria perspective, considering the relevant elements without limitations. With this purpose in mind, the Recommendations for the Design and Operation of Maritime Works (ROM program) have adopted this approach in the coastal and port environment in their latest revisions. The objective of the project “Climate Change in Mediterranean Wave Conditions” (CCOM) has been to define a methodology to simulate the wave conditions that will occur in the Mediterranean under different climate change scenarios for the period 2018-2100 based on a stochastic approach.

This project represents an ambitious advance in the current state of knowledge and technological development by proposing a new design methodology of breakwaters, that incorporates the evolution of damage and repair strategies with cost analysis in the technical- economic design model of breakwaters. This development will be the basis for the final result of this project: the implementation of a methodology for the design, construction and maintenance of the main section of the breakwaters in each of its project phases that allows to optimize the total cost of the project and select the most efficient alternative, responding to the demands of the ROM1.1-18.

The main objective of the project is to study how to adapt the combined wind-wave energy exploitation to the energy resource available on the Andalusian coast. In particular, it seeks to achieve sustainable technological efficiency in an environment with a medium maritime climate, in which intermediate states, even those close to calm states, can be effectively exploited. This also has a direct impact on the economic requirements for setting up such an operation, making it more competitive and simpler to install, maintain, repair and, where necessary, dismantle. In order to achieve these objectives, it is proposed to carry out a theoretical/experimental study focused on the adaptation of the basic technological principles of wind and wave energy exploitation to the environmental and climatic conditions of the Andalusian coastline.

One of the proposed solutions to mitigate the effects of climate change in coastal areas is the installation of renewable energy systems (wave, wind) designed both for clean energy extraction and protection against coastal processes with increasing frequency and/or intensity. However, the suitability of those renewable solutions has to be carefully assessed. In fact, the equilibrium of coastal systems and the related environmental fluid dynamics can be influenced by external facts with different scales: on a large scale the climate change would be main agent; on a small scale, human interactions with the coast area might have great influence on the coastal processes.

The objective of this project is to build an integrated strategical approach to the effects of renewable energy technologies (waves, wind and combined) on the interface atmosphere-ocean, and the consequences for the coastal environmental fluid dynamics.

SUSME is a bi­-regional cooperation Europe­-Latin America focused in testing, improving and optimizing a group of technologies for marine energy harnessing. The main goal is to set the basis for increasing the scale of the devices towards their implementation in real sea conditions and prototype dimensions.
In the context of having efficient technologies, the analysis of the data derived from the tests in laboratory, will be used to design the components, subsystems, and connection to the network, in such a way that they will contribute to the reduction of the marketing gap, interest for the industry in terms of reducing maintenance and operating costs as well as the LCOE.

The mutual knowledge will be channeled to continue with the development of the technologies, as well as for future cooperation, since the results will lay the foundations to take advantage of the ocean resource in different regions.

The SUDOE coast is a territory highly vulnerable to climate change the effects. These environments have been widely modified from natural spaces to urban areas with a strong anthropic pressure. The increase in the frequency of extreme events induces geological hazards that significantly affect the economy of coastal regions and pose a threat to their inhabitants. RISKCOAST promotes innovation to face a range of threats: landslides, subsidence of the land due to the intense exploitation of aquifers during droughts, erosion and fluvial processes after torrential events along the river basins and delta regression. Coastal processes tend to be very complex by including all these systems and processes with cascading effects that are difficult to predict. RISKCOAST offers an integral vision of the risks that lurk the coast, considering the whole of the hydrological basin.

Recommendations for Breakwater Construction Projects (ROM 1.1) completes the regulatory framework of Puertos del Estado for maritime infrastructures that protect land areas against marine dynamics (i.e. wave oscillations). It is a revision and expansion of the ROM 0.0-01 and ROM 1.0-09. The methodology applied in the ROM 1.1 is described in the ROM 0.0-01. With all of its specificities, it reinforces and is the driving force behind the conservation, repair, readaptation and dismantling of port and maritime works. It also points to the need for experimental studies to verify Construction and Investment Projects (of whatever type) and to map out new basic research lines that will help to revise current recommendations and create new ones. The international prestige of the ROM program is an additional motivation to attain these objectives.

The main aim of this innovative proposal is to provide optimal answers, with the associated uncertainty and risk, to specific management problems in the Guadalquivir estuary (SW Spain). The answers comply with legal, environmental, and socio-economic restrictions. Single- or multi-variable time-series of physical and biogeochemical variables are simulated at tidal, event, seasonal, and multi-annual time scales. The multi-criteria stochastic analysis allows analyzing, for example, different strategies of dredging, regulation of flow rates, drying and flooding of tidal channels and mitigation of the effects of climate change. This multi-criteria approach to estuarine management is, today, an urgent task, given the environmental status of many world estuaries. This is precisely the social challenge facing the PIRATES project.

The evidence of climate change has increased the demand of data and favoured the creation of climate services that provide projections at different time and space scales. In this project we propose to use innovative research techniques and integrated co-developmment with users to advance the quality and usability of several climate services.

This work aims to have a better understanding of climate change impacts and improve the adaptation capability at fluvial, coastal and transition zones in mediterranean environments that have been altered by human activities.

Estuaries are highly productive transition areas linking land, freshwater, and marine habitats and then, they also are a major focus of concern regarding the impacts of climate change.

This project aims to study the physical and biotic sensibility of the estuaries of the Iberian Peninsula against global change. It offers efficient perspectives of management and mitigation of impacts on hydrodynamics and biotic of estuaries at horizon 2080.

One of the main challenges ahead for world’s society is the management of climate change and the subsequent sea level rise (SLR). The coastline gathers one of the most intensely exploited areas settled by humans: half the world’s population lives within 60 km from the shoreline. The effects caused by SLR will affect millions of people, as well as infrastructures, industries, farming settlements, tourist resorts and urban developments.

This project aims to provide recommendations to minimize the impact of the sea level rise on coastal urban fronts. Three case studies have been selected in Spain, Mexico and Portugal.