Sustainable Seas and Coasts

A sea of opportunities

The sea and the coastal zone have been important for people, communities and businesses – and they will only become even more important in the time to come. The sea is our most important arena for future value creation – but also our best opportunity to keep global climate change at bay. With the global expectations for the ocean, there is also a paradox: We wish to exploit more of the resources in the sea, without negatively affecting the climate and the environment.

NORCE contributes to the green transition in the ocean industries. Ensuring environmental sustainability throughout the value chain, while the industry has ambitions for growth is a key dilemma for Norwegian society.

Aquaculture

NORCE researches how the aquaculture industry can become more sustainable, with better fish welfare, reduced CO2 emissions, and a lower environmental footprint. NORCE is a world leader in research on efficient farming in closed systems and has an increasing focus on making the blue economy more circular and resource-efficient. We are developing new circular value chains from fish waste, sustainable feed ingredients for farmed salmon, and industrial enzymes required by the marine product industry to increase the value of by-products.

The researchers at NORCE are at the forefront in several areas related to the digitalisation of the aquaculture industry, such as machine vision, automated machine learning, artificial intelligence, and the development of digital twins for various production systems and applications, including Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS) and offshore aquaculture.

Wild fish

NORCE collaborates with environmental authorities and hydropower companies on how to ensure viable populations of wild fish. Our leading research in conservation biology examines how aquaculture activities affect local wild salmon stocks and other vulnerable species, and maps environmental changes and measures in rivers, fjords, and marine areas through long-term studies.

Since the 1980s, NORCE has collaborated with the Institute of Marine Research on the development of advanced software and analytical tools for mapping pelagic and demersal resources. This has resulted in, among other things, the "Large Scale Survey System" software, which enables the rapid interpretation of large volumes of data.

Monitoring technology for the ocean and marine industries

NORCE further contributes to increased knowledge and more sustainable marine industries through the development of technologies for environmental measurement and monitoring of structures placed in the ocean in connection with industrial activities. The technological development ranges from creating new sensors, to developing wireless network technology for underwater use, to advanced systems for data collection, management, analysis, and visualisation.

NORCE develops and optimises monitoring systems with a focus on self-validation of sensors, data quality, and uncertainty in measurement data.

NORCE possesses substantial technical infrastructure, including drones, communication systems, smart sensors, and software systems that can be used for near real-time measurement of both environmental parameters and condition parameters. Remote monitoring using satellite data is also an important area of expertise.

Addressing global environmental challenges and circular economy solutions

Through research and knowledge dissemination, NORCE also addresses global challenges such as marine plastic pollution, the impacts of climate change, and pollution in aquatic ecosystems. Increased reuse also requires the ability to extract environmental toxins from new value chains—a dilemma within the circular economy where NORCE contributes with important holistic understanding.