JellyX - Free demo of the service

Increasing events of jellyfish outbreaks that can reach hundreds of individuals per cubic metre are harmful to marine ecosystems and human health, with severe impacts on fisheries, tourism and aquaculture. For instance, jellyfish outbreaks are responsible for major fish kills, causing profit loss for the global marine aquaculture industry.

ColomboSky is addressing this issue by offering JellyX, an advanced web mapping tool for large scale monitoring of jellyfish swarms and their drift, based on oceanographic data provided by Copernicus Marine Service. Fish farmers, coastal managers and tourism authorities, actively seeking effective solutions to this problem, can use JellyX to forecast jellyfish outbreaks and monitor their drift in order to timely activate loss minimisation strategies and closure of recreational beaches.

JellyX service currently applies to the Mediterranean Sea and is integrated into the AquaX platform, a complete online solution tailored to the aquaculture industry for water quality monitoring and environmental risk prevention.

The classification maps of Capraia Island (Tuscan Archipelago, Italy) and of the Mediterranean coasts of Spain show the level of risk associated with the presence of jellyfish bloom: 0 for low risk or absence of jellyfish, 1 for medium risk or potential presence of few individuals, 2 represents a high risk of massive proliferation. 

Capraia is one of the seven islands of the Tuscan Archipelago (Tuscany, Italy) in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The island is part of the Arcipelago Toscano National Park and marine sanctuary. With only a few hundred people inhabiting the island and no industrial activities, Capraia’s community relies on fisheries, aquaculture and tourism, and therefore is highly dependent on the marine environment and its resources.

Over the last two decades, the outbreaks of the jellyfish species Pelagia noctiluca have increased in frequency along the Italian coasts, likely due to large-scale hydrodynamic changes and global warming. This species is harmful to humans and marine fauna, and when invading fish farms large swarms can generate stock mass mortality and gill disorders through their stings. 

Through real time and forecast information of abundance and geolocalisation of swarms of P. noctiluca and other jellyfish species, JellyX allows fish farmers to manage the impact of jellyfish on their production activities.

The Mediterranean Spanish coast is home to an important sea bass and sea bream farming industry. Since 2005, over 11 gill disease outbreaks caused by jellyfish have been reported in sea bass farms along this coast. Due to the growth of the aquaculture sector and the increased frequency of jellyfish blooms in the coastal waters in this part of the Mediterranean Sea, negative interactions between stinging jellyfish and farmed fish are likely to increase with the potential for significant economic losses. Together with providing a technological solution to mitigate jellyfish impacts on fish farms, Jellyfish supports early monitoring of risks for aquaculture production to reduce and prevent economic losses.