Contributing to the Sustainability of Bivalves in the Ria Formosa

Alexandra Cravo works at the University of Algarve’s Centre for Marine and Environmental Research (CIMA).

The project she coordinates is called CONPRAR – Contribution to the protection of the Ruditapes decussatus clams resource in the Ria Formosa ecosystem, which is funded by the Mar 2020 Operational Programme and will end in 2021.

The main aim of the CONPRAR project is to assess the impact of urban wastewater discharge on water quality in the Ria Formosa system, specifically in the vicinity of areas used for the production of bivalves.

The Ria Formosa offers ecosystem services that are very relevant from a socioeconomic perspective, that is, it provides countless direct and indirect benefits to the community. This is the main production area for bivalve molluscs in the country.

Alexandra Cravo believes that, “The discharge of urban wastewater can lower the quality of the water in the receiving aquatic system due to the increase of organic matter and inorganic nutrients, the reduction of oxygen levels, the introduction of pathogenic microorganisms and the fostering of the proliferation of potentially toxic microalgae, factors that can cause serious public health problems.”

The project includes sampling and analysing the areas of influence of the five main wastewater treatment plants, considering the chemical characteristics of the water, the composition of phytoplankton (including biotoxinproducing species) and microbiological contamination of faecal origin.

This information, along with its integration into numerical forecast models, will become tools that can be used to support the management and protection of this ecosystem, specifically the sustainability of bivalves.

These observations and numerical modelling will also allow for lower and higher risk locales and/or periods to be determined in terms of the consumption of shellfish produced in the Ria Formosa and, as such, serve to guide producers, consumers and environmental managers.

The models produced will also contribute to improving the system’s response to future scenarios, allowing for consequences to be determined and effects mitigated.

All this information will be made available on a WebSIG platform, a tool that will be used to support the management and protection of this ecosystem. On the whole, the impact of the actions proposed by the CONPRAR project will contribute to increasing bivalve sustainability.

This project is in line with two of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals that make up the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Goal 14, “Life Below Water” and Goal 6, “Clean Water and Sanitation”.

Alexandra Cravo has a Bachelor’s Degree in Marine Biology and Fisheries, a PhD in Marine Sciences / Oceanography and is a researcher at the Centre for Marine and Environmental Research (CIMA) of the University of Algarve.