Vigo
Vigo is a coastal city where the port activity coexists with the presence of local fisheries and shellfish mariculture (Vigo is the largest fishing port in Europe), all of this embedded into the framework of a Maritime National Park that imposes stringent conservation regulations on the marine environment. This socio-economic scenario exists in the “Rías,” which are fjord-like systems bathed by the northern boundary of the Eastern Atlantic upwelling system, making this area a highly variable, high productivity marine ecosystem impacted by global change stressors. One of our flagship research initiatives to be developed in the near future is the “Vigo Smart Harbour” project which aims at extending the concept of smart city to harbour cities and their environment, promoting smart and integrated management of the city, its port and its natural surroundings.
Emilio Fernandez Suarez
Emilio Fernandez Suarez has a PhD in Biology from the University of Oviedo. He was a post—doctoral research fellow at Plymouth Marine Laboratory (UK) and the Rosenstiel School for Marine and Atmospheric Sciences of the University of Miami from 1991 to 1993 and at the Institute for Marine Research of the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) from 1993 to 1994. He took a position as lecturer of Marine Ecology at the Faculty of Marine Science of the University of Vigo in 1995. Since 2011, he is full professor of Marine Ecology at the same university. His research has been focused on the study of biologically—mediated fluxes of matter and energy in marine systems in relation to environmental changes and currently investigating on the functional responses of coastal microbial communities to inputs of organic and inorganic matter in the context of global change. His scientific record is summarized in more than 130 scientific papers published in highly rated international journals and an H-ratio of 32. Since 2010 he is the Director of the International Campus of Excellence in marine sciences leaded by the University of Vigo and is currently the manager of the Spanish National Plan for Marine Science and Technology.
