Assessment tool for predicting the dynamic risk of drowning on beaches looking for technical and commercial partners

A multidisciplinary team, coming from I+D centers and universities, has developed a tool which is able to assess and predict risk of drowning on beaches, based on historical catalogue of drowning events, hydrodynamic modelling, global data provided by the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service and ANN (artificial neural networks) technology. They are looking for partners to further develop new product features and commercial exploitation.

The assessment tool has been developed with the aim of preventing drowning and accidents in aquatic spaces and targeted end-users include: aquatic space public users, lifeguard services, administrations of aquatic spaces. End users may obtain metocean data and tailored information about the hazards of a dynamic and ever-changing environment. Areas of expertise of the team members are lifesaving and risk prevention, hydrodynamic modelling, and information technology. Project team has been focused on the development of an operational service based on the CMEMS (Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service), which provides regular and systematic reference information on the physical and biogeochemical state, variability and dynamics of the ocean and marine ecosystems for the global ocean and the European regional seas. Project members expertise comes from diverse backgrounds (lifesaving and risk prevention, hydrodynamic modelling and ANN-artificial neural networking) as well as different organizations (research centers and universities). The developed assessment tool has been conceived as a breakthrough solution for one of the major public health problems worldwide: drowning. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), drowning is among the ten leading causes of death for children and young people in every region of the world. It is estimated that there are 360,000 annual deaths from drowning all around the world, although, global estimates may significantly underestimate the real problem of public health related to drowning. The product of the project has the following features, which are in different stages of development: - Characteristics of beaches and shorelines. Each site is characterized with its different morphological features (sand type, berms, etc.). In addition, the static risks are located and identified. - Catalogue of events and metocean conditions. Dynamic risks for each site are identified. The catalogue of events includes the information of metocean conditions provided by the Copernicus Marine Service. - ANN setup. The configuration of the ANN is established at each study site. - Electronic flags. Based on the dynamic risk analysis, the electronic flag methodology is defined. - Back-end of the Operational System. The operational workflow to obtain tailored information (p.e. electronic flags) from the Copernicus Marine Service is established and functional. - Front-end of the SOSeas tool. The design and development of User Experience (UX) and User Interfaces (UI) is achieved. Team project is looking for technical partners to further develop new features of the tool, and also for partners to commercially exploit upgraded versions, as mobile app under a technical cooperation or commercial agreement with technical assistance.