Plastic-i Awarded SBRI Contract to Study Algal Blooms in Lough Neagh

Plastic-i was today selected as one of three winners for a project to monitor algal bloom levels in Lough Neagh, Northern Ireland.

Lough Neagh has been blighted by harmful algal blooms in recent years, with an enormous peak in summer 2023 causing alarm in the region. Lough Neagh is an important water resource in Northern Ireland, with its catchmentproviding drinking water for 43% of the Northern Irish population. The increase in harmful algal blooms in recent years has been attributed to increased agricultural runoff, the spread of zebra mussels in the lake and from increased water temperatures due to climate change.

Plastic-i will develop methods to locate, monitor and forecast algal blooms within Lough Neagh, looking at both the lake itself and the wider catchment area. This development will use a mixture of satellite imagery, drone imagery provided by our partner Marble, and ground truth datasets provided by authorities in Northern Ireland.

The development of this model will allow for improved monitoring of the flow of algal blooms throughout Lough Neagh and provide early warning to the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) and other environmental agencies within Northern Ireland. This increased early warning of bloom activity can be used to plan mitigation and intervention campaigns, thus stopping the harmful algal blooms before they become a significant problem.

A separate stream of projects focusing on mitigation efforts for existing projects is underway, and Plastic-i will look to partner with those projects in the future to provide a full monitoring and mitigation service into the future to restore Lough Neagh back to full health.