The impact of climate change on pathogens in coastal waters, which may pose health risks is the focus of a new EU-funded research project involving University of Galway scientists.
The €10m Horizon Europe project involves scientists in 12 institutes across ten European countries.
Entitled BlueAdapt – Reducing Climate Based Risks in Blue Environments, it aims to investigate the complex interactions between climate change, pathogen dynamics and human health.
An interdisciplinary team involves microbiologists, epidemiologists, economists, climate scientists and policy specialists, and is led by Prof Marc Neumann of the Basque Centre for Climate Change.
Prof Dearbháile Morris of University of Galway’s One Health team said that coastal waters are “important for tourism, fishing and recreational activities”.
“Through BlueAdapt we hope to assess how bacteria and viruses in our coastal waters respond to different climate change scenarios and understand better the potential impacts for human health,” she said.
Dr Sinead Duane, lecturer in marketing and part of the University of Galway One Health team said that “testing and monitoring are key ways to improve and maintain the quality of our coastal waters” and “how we interact with our coastal waters also plays a role”.
“Through the development of behaviourally enhanced smartphone app technology, Blue Adapt will deepen our understanding of coastal water users behaviours and attitudes to exposure pollution events,” she said.
“ This information will help develop targeted interventions in the future. This app will capture how users respond to warnings of pollution events in real time,”she said.
BlueAdapt is a partnership between University of Galway, the Basque Centre for Climate Change, University of Exeter, Charles University, University of Warsaw, Deltares, CMCC, EuroHealthNet, Bangor University, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, University of the Basque Country and ThenTryThis.
BlueAdapt is funded under the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme.