Knowing the sea means knowing the planet. The project was born and developed from this principle Sea care of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in collaboration with the Navy for research on health, environment and climate in vision Planetary health. The project launched last May 2022 completes a year of activity and research in all the seas in which the Navy operates, a reality which thanks to its peculiarity has made it possible to carry out continuous monitoring in different areas of the world, involving numerous naval assets and making assume a considerably extended transnational and global dimension to the project.
The research activity, promoted through a memorandum of understanding signed last year by the ISS and the Navy, could not fail to involve Nave Morosini, whose participation in the Campaign in the Indo-Pacific, a basin of unusual gravitation, represented an unmissable opportunity to learn about the sea and more generally the state of health of the planet in a particularly relevant area also in scientific terms.
The SEA CARE project aims to define chemical contamination profiles and microbiological facies in different marine areas of the planet by applying identical analytical methodologies aimed at:
- analysis of the contamination profiles of persistent chemical substances of anthropic origin;
- deepening of knowledge on the distribution and biodiversity of microorganisms;
- assessment of the risks associated with the quality of the marine environment in relation to human impacts and climate change.
On board of Nave Morosini, throughout the activity, various groups of ISS researchers will take turns sampling and analyzing the waters of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, according to a specific research plan in the areas deemed most sensitive and of greatest scientific interest, in full synergy with the activity conducted by the ship and by the Navy.
Studying the planet and raising awareness of the risks caused by pollution and climate change is essential both to contribute to the progress of scientific knowledge at an international level and to define the possible impacts of global changes on the health of the populations of our coasts and on the social and economic development of the Village.
With this warning, all that remains is to wish the ISS researchers and Nave's crew a good job Morosini in their mission.
