ARGO Sentinel

Martinelli M., Moroni D., Salvetti O.

Inquinamento  Software  Sentinelle del mare 

Based on the idea that contribution of volunteers might play a fundamental role in monitoring and protecting the environment, CNR-ISTI designed and developed a mobile application in order to allow people to timely report oil spills. By downloading the FREE app "ARGO Sentinel" volunteers are helping to monitor the health of our seas and the scientific research by demonstrating that the use of this new technology could be really important to combat pollution. Moreover this experiment suggests that this kind of technology can be applied in many other fields. Whoever at sea sights pollution by oil or hydrocarbons is now able to immediately report the event to the Laboratory of Signals and Images SI-LAB (si.isti.cnr.it) of the Institute of Science and Information Technologies of the Italian National Research Council (CNR-ISTI) in Pisa, allowing the realization of a detailed map of the health of our seas. This information is recorded in the Marine Information System (MIS) produced by CNR, able to collect geotagged data relating to critical and health issues of the sea from various sources (satellites, optical sensors, electronic noses, autonomous underwater vehicles systems) and integrate and generate predictive models to assist the authorities in the management of emergencies at sea. The application, distributed in Italian, English and Greek languages, for smartphones equipped of GPS is an easy to use tool designed for anyone, that for any reason, sail the seas. It allows you to send reports of suspected spills to the CNR specifying the precise point, severity and a description of the spill.