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Oihane C. Basurko

Oihane C. Basurko
AZTI · Marine Technologies

PhD, BSc

About

83
Publications
28,174
Reads
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1,782
Citations
Introduction
I received my PhD degree in the field of sustainability assessment of marine technologies at Newcastle University, UK (2010). I joined AZTI in 2010, and since, I have been involved on research projects related to fishing, aquaculture and shipping, particularly on their interaction with marine litter, energy efficiency, non-indigenous species, and on leading these industries and relevant administrations towards a sustainable development and management.
Additional affiliations
May 2010 - October 2022
AZTI
Position
  • Senior Researcher
October 2004 - June 2010
Newcastle University
Position
  • PhD Student
Education
October 2002 - June 2004
University of Girona
Field of study
September 1998 - June 2002
University of Girona
Field of study

Publications

Publications (83)
Article
Full-text available
The aim of this study is to evaluate the possibility of incorporating marine litter from the coast into the management system of the non-selectively collected fraction of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW). With this purpose, the technical feasibility of automatic separation of marine plastic litter is evaluated, which would allow for subsequent recycling...
Technical Report
Full-text available
This study is the first research paper in a series of three, prepared for a PECH Committee Workshop. It gives insight on the challenges and opportunities arisen from the application of the European Green Deal to European fisheries. It identifies solutions that are currently being applied regarding decarbonisation and circular economy practices in f...
Technical Report
Full-text available
The overall objective of conducting a survey in BIOGEARS project will be to gather information from different stakeholders to give answers to the following objectives of the project: (1) Develop the market analysis of biobased ropes or aquaculture biogears (ABG); by defining market scenarios for biobased ropes, by estimating their potential price a...
Article
The structure, materials and designs of drifting Fish Aggregating Devices (dFADs) have generally remained rudimentary and relatively unchanged since they first came into use in the 1980 s. However, more recently, dFADs have been increasing in dimensions and the prevailing use of plastic components. Abandoned, lost or discarded dFADs can therefore c...
Article
Full-text available
Worldwide, current mussel and seaweed aquaculture practices contribute to the increase of fossil fuel‐based plastic gears at sea, leading to marine litter and microplastics generation. Smart aquaculture has a great potential for shifting towards the use of lower impact bio‐based and biodegradable gears. This review defines the value chain of biogea...
Article
Full-text available
Drifting Fish Aggregating Devices (dFADs) are currently made with synthetic and non-biodegradable materials contributing to the increase of marine litter and other potential ecosystem impacts. Tuna RFMOs have promoted the research and progressive replacement of existing FADs by non-entangling biodegradable FADs (bioFADs). Here, we present the resul...
Article
Full-text available
Although (micro)plastic contamination is a worldwide concern, most scientific literature only restates that issue rather than presenting strategies to cope with it. This critical review assembles the current knowledge on policies and responses to tackle plastic pollution, including peer-reviewed scientific literature, gray literature and relevant r...
Article
Full-text available
Although rivers contribute to the flux of litter to the marine environment, estimates of riverine litter amounts and detailed studies on floating riverine litter behaviour once it has reached the sea are still scarce. This paper provides an analysis of the seasonal behaviour of floating marine litter released by rivers within the south-eastern Bay...
Article
Full-text available
Klima Aldaketa eta Itsasertzari buruzko Mugaz gaindiko V. Biltzarra. Laburpen zabalak V Congreso transfronterizo sobre Cambio Climático y Litoral. Abstracts extendidos V Congrès transfrontalier sur le Changement Climatique et Littoral. Abstract étendue V Cross border conference on climate and coastal change. Extended abstracts
Article
European Commission has approached the challenge of End-Of-Life (EOL) fishing gear and Abandoned, Lost, or otherwise Discarded Fishing Gear (ALDFG) by focusing on circular economy. Current directives highlight the need to provide a proper management to EOL fishing gears, fostering their separate collection, transport, and treatment from a circular...
Conference Paper
Introduction Low trophic aquaculture, such as bivalve species, can be candidate species for the minimization of environmental impact of worldwide growing aquaculture, while providing consumers with high quality and nutritive seafood. Nowadays, mussels are cultured suspended mainly in raft and longline systems, using ropes made of non-biodegradable...
Article
Full-text available
To effectively future-proof the management of the European Union fishing fleets we have explored a suite of case studies encompassing the northeast and tropical Atlantic, the Mediterranean, Baltic and Black Seas. This study shows that European Union (EU) fisheries are likely resilient to climate-driven short-term stresses, but may be negatively imp...
Article
Full-text available
Numerical models point to the south-east Bay of Biscay as a convergence area for floating particles, including plastics. The few existing studies on plastic abundance in the area mainly focus on open waters and yet information on the coastal area is limited. To fill this gap, neustonic samples were taken along the coastal waters of the south-east B...
Article
Full-text available
Tropical tuna purse seiners are one of the most important contributors to end-of-life (EoL) fishing gears in the world, and these fishing nets can become a promising secondary raw material. Thus, tuna companies are looking for possibilities to valorize them by applying circular economy (CE). This contribution aims at assessing the viability of crea...
Article
Full-text available
The ocean is facing multiple pressures from human activities, including the effects of climate change. Science has a prominent role in identifying problems and communicating these to society. However, scientists are also increasingly taking an active role in developing solutions, including strategies for adapting to and mitigating climate change, i...
Preprint
Full-text available
Although rivers contribute to the flux of litter to the coastal and marine environment, estimates of riverine litter amounts are scarce and the behaviour of riverine litter at river mouths and coastal waters is highly uncertain. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the seasonal trends of floating riverine litter transport and fate in the...
Article
In the Bay of Biscay, regional monitoring programmes and data on abundance and distribution of floating marine litter are scarce, contrary to many other European marine regions. Here, a joint analysis of multiyear observations (2017–2019) of floating micro and macrolitter and oceanographic conditions was conducted for the Bay of Biscay by combining...
Article
Different fishing strategies have been adopted in the last decades by tropical tuna purse seiners fleet, including fish aggregating device (FAD) and free-swimming school (FSC) fishing strategies, which has raised issues about the different carbon footprint of those fishing modes. Here we show the activity and energy patterns of a Spanish tuna purse...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
BIOGEARS addresses the challenge of minimizing the use of plastics in the sea by developing prototypes of biobased and compostable ropes, biogears, and examines their use in culture of mussels and seaweed Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) systems. The goal of the biopolymers used in the development of the biogears is to achieve competitiv...
Article
Full-text available
Sea-based sources account for 32–50 % of total marine litter found at the European basins with the fisheries sector comprising almost 65 % of litter releases. In the south-east coastal waters of the Bay of Biscay this figure approaches the contribution of just the floating marine litter fraction. This study seeks to enhance knowledge on the distrib...
Article
Full-text available
The physical-chemical characterization of plastic litter from the marine environment requires the prior removal of the biofouling attached to their surface without causing any degradation in the polymer. The absence of a standardized protocol for digesting biofouling and organic matter of both macro and microplastic samples extracted from seawater...
Article
Full-text available
The surge of research on marine litter is generating important information on its inputs, distribution and impacts, but data on the nature and origin of the litter remain scattered. Here, we harmonize worldwide litter-type inventories across seven major aquatic environments and find that a set of plastic items from take-out food and beverages large...
Article
Marine litter is a complex paradigm requiring innovative solutions. Public administrations are willing to contribute to counterpart marine litter but insufficient knowledge hindrance the progress. The integration of economic assessment in the decision-making may help to design knowledge-based solutions that guarantee a good marine litter management...
Article
Full-text available
Windrow is a long-established term for the aggregations of seafoam, seaweeds, plankton and natural debris that appear on the ocean surface. Here, we define a “litter windrow” as any aggregation of floating litter at the submesoscale domain (<10 km horizontally), regardless of the force inducing the surface convergence, be it wind or other forces su...
Article
Full-text available
BIOGEARS contribuye a la generación de economía circular y apoya las estrategias de economía circular de plásticos desde un Blue Lab, que es un laboratorio de innovación para la generación de soluciones económicamente viables para afrontar el reto de la reducción del uso de plásticos en el ambiente marino y de su acumulación en forma de basura. Aun...
Article
Full-text available
Large scale convergence regions of floating marine litter are commonly observed in semi-enclosed seas as the Bay of Biscay. However, clean-up activities on such accumulation regions are limited by the spread of the large-size floating litter on the sea surface. Data gathered by a small-scale fishing vessel devoted to active fishing for floating lit...
Presentation
Full-text available
Rivers act as pathways to the ocean of significant but unquantified amounts of plastic pollution. Measuring with precision the quantities of riverine plastic inputs is crucial to support and ensure the effectiveness of prevention and mitigation waste management actions. However, there is a lack of technological tools capable of monitoring and, cons...
Article
Microplastics (MPs) are an environmental problem of growing concern, and several studies have defined the Bay of Biscay (BoB) as a marine litter accumulation area. To address the abundance of MPs in this region, a critical overview is presented compiling the research performed to date on the different water bodies, sediments and biota. The comparat...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Aquaculture is an industry that creates economic value, employment, and economic support to rural and coastal areas and is called to address growing food demands, thus the European Union is keen on its large-scale expansion. Although offshore mussel aquaculture has been identified as a promising sector for aquaculture expansion, this sector makes u...
Article
Full-text available
Monitoring introduction and spread of nonindigenous species via maritime transport and performing risk assessments require port biological baseline surveys. Yet, the comprehensiveness of these surveys is often compromised by the large number of habitats present in a port, the seasonal variability, and the time‐consuming morphological approach used...
Article
Full-text available
Until recent years we have been unaware of the presence of microplastics (MPs) in the marine environment. MPs are plastic particles smaller than 5 mm accumulated in seas and shores, due to the dumping of small plastic materials used in certain products, or by the fragmentation of larger plastic objects. The actual extent of their risk is yet unknow...
Chapter
Full-text available
This comparison highlights that Automatic Identification System (AIS)-based methods to estimate fishing effort such as the Global Fishing Watch (GFW) methodology can provide the general pattern of relative distribution of fishing effort intensity. These results were obtained in an area where coverage is quite good in general and with good vessels r...
Article
Non-indigenous species are introduced worldwide with ballast water (BW). To prevent further introductions, oceanic BW exchange and BW treatment systems are utilized, but their performance needs to be evaluated. To that aim, characterizing BW communities is essential but usually relies on exhaustive sampling and morphological taxonomic identificatio...
Preprint
Full-text available
Monitoring introduction and spread of non-indigenous species via maritime transport and performing risk assessments require port biological baseline surveys. Yet, the comprehensiveness of these surveys is often compromised by the large number of habitats present in a port, the seasonal variability and the time-consuming morphological approach used...
Article
The Bay of Biscay is being affected by increasing level of marine litter, which is causing a wide variety of adverse environmental, social, public health, safety and economic impacts. The term “beach littering” has been coined to refer to the marine litter that is deposited on beaches. This litter may come from the sea and through land-based pathwa...
Article
Marine litter is identified as the major ocean pollution today, with a significant impact on the environment. The transport of litter by ocean circulation is still poorly understood, and the management of marine litter remains a major challenge for local authorities. This work investigates the transport of floating marine litter (FML) in the coasta...
Article
In regression, a predictive model which is able to anticipate the output of a new case is learnt from a set of previous examples. The output or response value of these examples used for model training is known. When learning with aggregated outputs, the examples available for model training are individually unlabeled. Collectively, the aggregated o...
Poster
Marine litter is a global concern affecting all the oceans of the world. It threatens not only marine environment and human wellbeing, but also it hampers economic activities such as coastal tourism, fisheries and shipping. Floating items represent the mobile fraction of marine litter that is located at the surface of the water column. Recent studi...
Poster
Full-text available
Marine litter is a global concern affecting all the oceans of the world. It threatens not only marine environment and human wellbeing, but also it hampers economic activities such as coastal tourism, fisheries and shipping. Floating items represent the mobile fraction of marine litter that is located at the surface of the water column. Recent studi...
Presentation
Full-text available
Rivers are according to literature key vectors of marine litter input into the oceans. And the ongrowing concern towards plastic pollution is making authorities to seek for new technology and approaches. We developed a riverine floating litter detection and monitoring system to quantify the litter passing through a river mouth. The system, that is...
Article
Marine diesel engines are one of the most representative fossil fuels consumers on the planet. These engines are responsible for a large amount of air pollutants, including greenhouse gas emissions. This concern led to the adoption of new regulations and policies for shipping, which involved more intensive restrictions for airborne emissions. This...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Marine litter is an emerging issue of global concern causing harm to marine wildlife, coastal communities and marine activities. Floating marine litter constitutes the fraction of litter located at the water surface. In the Bay of Biscay, floating marine litter density is considerable in comparison to other European regions. Furthermore, this area...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The Bay of Biscay is being affected by increasing levels of marine litter, which are causing a wide variety of adverse environmental, social, public health, safety and economic impacts. The term "beach litter" is used by some authors to refer to the marine litter that is deposited on beaches. This litter can reach the coast due to the wind, the sea...
Article
The high-fuel dependency of the shipping industry and its corresponding pollutant emissions need to be addressed within the new de-carbonisation era. Concurrently, the waste-to-energy concept arises to drive sustainable initiatives for energy production. In that sense, in the present study, the feasibility of an alternative fuel oil (AFO) based on...
Article
Recirculating aquaculture systems (RASs) are intensive fish production systems, with reduced use of water and land. However, their high energy requirement is a drawback, which increases both operational costs and the potential impacts created by the use of fossil fuels. Energy use in RAS has been studied indirectly and/or mentioned in several publi...
Article
En los últimos años el ecosistema Open en el que se inscriben movimientos como el Open Source Software, el Open Access y más recientemente el Open Data, está generando profundos cambios en las estrategias de investigadores y centros de investigación, empresas y administraciones. En este artículo se hace una revisión de estos conceptos, de las inici...
Article
Full-text available
Ballast water is a main vector of introduction of Harmful Aquatic Organisms and Pathogens, which includes Non-Indigenous Species. Numerous and diversified organisms are transferred daily from a donor to a recipient port. Developed to prevent these introduction events, the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Wat...
Article
Full-text available
Aquatic Invasive Alien Species (AIAS) are increasing due to the synergistic effects of climate change and habitat destruction. AIAS can heavily impact biodiversity and human health, causing a loss of ecosystem services; therefore, their control and management have now become a priority, particularly in the light of the new EU regulation 1143/2014 o...
Article
In Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS), water is continuously treated and recirculated as opposed to being discharged untreated into the environment as in other type of fish production systems; the design and production parameters will determine the overall energy consumption. This energy-intensive nature hampers their sustainability and cost-e...
Article
Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) is currently the highest valued species grown in Europe. The industry has been on the frontline of public concerns regarding sustainability which has increased the use of recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS). Salmon has changed from a luxury product to global commodity. Nevertheless, food products need to meet consu...
Article
Fossil fuels are the main energy source used in the world. However, environmental concerns, over-consumption, and fluctuating price rates are boosting efforts in the development of alternative fuels. This study presents the technical suitability of an alternative fuel for its use in marine diesel engines, as assessed through laboratory and engine p...
Article
Marine litter is one of the descriptors in the European Marine Strategy Framework Directive, which aims to achieve a healthy marine environment and make ecosystems more resilient to climate change. Most experiences have been focused upon quantifying the abundance and distribution of marine litter, on beaches in particular. Nevertheless, the continu...
Article
Condition-Based Maintenance for diesel engines has contributed to reliability, energy-efficiency, and cost reduction. Both, the modelling of engine performance and fault detection require large amounts of data; usually, these are obtained on a test bench. In contrast, in operative engines, provoking faults onboard is not a viable proposition. Condi...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
RAS are more environmental-friendly than Flow Through Systems (FTS); with the exception of energy demand, which hampers their viability. • Consumers are demanding sustainable products such as low carbon footprint seafood. • Environmental Life Cycle Assessment (eLCA) is the most popular method used for assessing environmetal impacts. • Energy audits...
Article
Full-text available
Uptake and discharge of ballast water by ocean-going ships contribute to the worldwide spread of aquatic invasive species, with negative impacts on the environment, economies, and public health. The International Ballast Water Management Convention aims at a global answer. The agreed standards for ballast water discharge will require ballast water...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Almost three quarters of vegetable by-products produced from food industry and retail trade end up in dumps. In the Basque Country, the region in Spain where this study is placed, potato industry by-products, rests of fruit and vegetables produced by supermarkets, and brewery yeast by-products have a high potential to be included in aquafeeds, taki...
Article
This contribution presents an integrated quantitative approach for the holistic assessment of the sustainability of technologies. The methodology envisages environmental, economic and social sustainability assessments separately, then collates them to obtain a single measure of sustainability. Standard life cycle assessment and economic evaluation...
Poster
Full-text available
Almost three quarters of vegetable by-products produced from food industry and retail trade end up in dumps. In the Basque Country, the region in Spain where this study is placed, potato industry by-products, rests of fruit and vegetables produced by supermarkets and brewery yeast by-products have a high potential to be included in aquafeeds, takin...
Article
Commercial fishing is heavily fuel dependant. The increase in the fuel price, together with the stock decline, occupational risks of fishing, the possibilities of finding a different future for new generations, are some of the reasons that have made fishing arrive at its 'survival limits', in many parts of Europe. This contribution aims at providin...
Article
As implementation of the Ballast Water Convention draws nearer a major challenge is the development of protocols which accurately assess compliance with the D-2 Standard. Many factors affect the accuracy of assessment: e.g. large volume of ballast water, the shape, size and number of ballast tanks and the heterogeneous distribution of organisms wit...
Article
The International Maritime Organization's (IMO's) G2 guideline (Guidelines for ballast water sampling) clearly states that ballast water samples are required to be representative of the whole ballast water discharged. Enforcement and implementation of the ballast water convention largely depend on defendable case based on evidence that a ship enter...
Article
Full-text available
This paper reviews the work done at the early concept and preliminary design stages for an innovative new class of short sea vessel. This work is part of a new EU-funded project CREATE3S that will develop new ship design concepts aimed at improving the efficiency of short sea shipping. CREATE3S aims to develop a new generation of short sea vessels...
Article
Waterborne transport is widely believed to be one of the most sustainable modes of commercial transportation. However, factors often overlooked such as unmeasured pollution and costs, hazards to crew and general society call into question this particular assessment of the industry. This paper highlights the need for the application of a holistic ap...
Conference Paper
Waterborne transport is widely believed to be one of the most sustainable modes of transportation. However factors which are often overlooked such as unmeasured pollution and costs, hazards to crew, shipyard workers, their families and society in general call into question this particular assessment of the industry. This paper highlights the need f...