On May 16-17, the Korea Institute of Ocean Science & Technology (KIOST) in Busan hosted the First Korea-Spain Oceanographic Symposium.
This initiative focused on advancing technologies and methodologies for monitoring marine protected areas. Spanish research activities in the framework of funded EU and national projects such as DIGI4ECO, LIFE-ECOREST and PLOME were presented. This activity will represent a first step forward to establish solid collaboration in the field of dee-sea restoration and ecological monitoring between Spain and Korea.
The automatization of image acquisition and processing is key to obtain more information about the ocean dynamics, restoration processes, and behaviour of the organisms that inhabit the sea.
The interest of KIOST in establishing a branch in a Caribbean country motivated the ICM-CSIC team to connect with the Colombian ambassador in Korea, who kindly attended the meeting to advocate for Colombia as a candidate for the initiative. In recent years, the ICM-CSIC team has collaborated in fisheries oceanography with Colombian researchers, aligning with KIOST’s regional interests.