🦪 Sending a micro-AUV to map the rebuilding of an oyster reef, deployed as active nature restoration in the North Sea.

That’s what our MARVEL did alongside the teams of the BLUE CONNECT Project.

📍 The site: European flat oysters seeded on natural gravel stones, placed there to bring a native reef back to life. Tracking how it develops calls for a fine picture of the seabed — high resolution, close to the bottom, without stirring up the sediment.

Launched by hand from the deck, our MARVEL scans the seabed slowly to deliver high-resolution imagery of the reef structures, holding a precise navigation line close to the bottom. This first baseline will tell us, a few months from now, whether the oysters have taken hold.
🌊 Each survey is another step in the BLUE CONNECT journey to restore native oyster reefs and strengthen biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and climate resilience in the North Sea.

🙏 Thanks to VLIZ – Flanders Marine Institute, Universiteit Gent – laboratory of Aquaculture & Artemia Reference Center, BLUEGent, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Jan De Nul Group, SPF Federale Overheidsdienst Volksgezondheid Veiligheid van de Voedselketen en Leefmilieu and Rovin BV for having us on board.
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