Smart SEAstems for Marine Reclamation Challenge (Qatar)

The focus areas, objectives, priorities, and themes of this initiative include addressing the impact of illegal, abandoned, or lost fishing nets in Qatar’s marine environment, reducing ecosystem degradation caused by ghost nets, improving detection and management of submerged and difficult-to-locate fishing gear, shifting focus toward upstream prevention at the point of net deployment, minimizing harm to marine wildlife including endangered species and coral reefs, protecting offshore infrastructure such as oil and gas platforms, subsea pipelines, and marine cables, reducing reliance on manual inspection and reporting systems, improving real-time visibility of fishing operations, enabling scalable monitoring across Qatar’s Exclusive Economic Zone, ensuring environmentally safe deployment of marine tracking technologies, supporting secure identification of fishing nets and operators, and enhancing long-term marine ecosystem protection through durable, low-maintenance, and technologically robust solutions.

The marine environment in Qatar is increasingly affected by ghost nets that are difficult to detect and remove once they become submerged or entangled in deep or sensitive ecosystems. These nets continue to operate invisibly, contributing to ecological damage and operational risks across marine industries and habitats.

To support the development and validation of innovative solutions under this challenge, cash support of up to 100,000 USD from QRDI is available, depending on the project proposal and subject to case-by-case agreement. This funding is intended to enable proof-of-concept development, testing, and demonstration of scalable marine reclamation technologies.

Current approaches to addressing this issue rely on periodic inspections and reporting from Coast and Border Security, QatarEnergy, and other sea users. However, these methods lack real-time monitoring capabilities and are limited by manual processes. Traditional visibility-based tools such as buoys have also proven unreliable due to theft, damage, and failure in submerged conditions, while earlier tracking attempts have faced challenges related to inaccurate positioning, high manpower demands, and the absence of a unified digital system for monitoring and ownership identification.

The challenge emphasizes the need for solutions that address the entire lifecycle of fishing nets, from deployment to potential loss and recovery, rather than focusing solely on post-loss detection. Solutions must be capable of reducing environmental harm in a scalable and practical manner across Qatar’s waters.

Technical expectations include reliable operation in marine conditions at depths of 15 to 20 metres for proof-of-concept validation, with a clear pathway to deeper deployment of up to 60 metres. Proposed systems must withstand high salinity, elevated temperatures, and prolonged submersion typical of Gulf waters, while also maintaining mechanical durability against tension, shock, and continuous marine movement.

Additional requirements include long-duration or continuous operation with minimal maintenance, suitable marine energy solutions such as long-life or energy-harvesting systems, and environmentally safe materials that do not introduce harm to marine ecosystems. Solutions should also support accurate tracking within a margin of approximately ±10 metres, enable identification of inactive or lost nets, and trigger alerts or actionable responses when necessary.

The system must be easy to deploy and operate without requiring specialized technical expertise, while also ensuring secure data handling and controlled access for authorized authorities. It should be compatible with future national marine monitoring and enforcement systems, and demonstrate scalability across large maritime zones including the full Exclusive Economic Zone of Qatar.

The proposed solutions will be evaluated based on their effectiveness in reducing environmental impact, their operational reliability under dynamic marine conditions, and their ability to provide practical, scalable, and sustainable marine reclamation outcomes.

For more information, visit QRDI Council.