Problem

Sargassum is a natural, even essential, part of the Caribbean's ecosystem but these recent blooms are having a devastating impact on the region, both ecologically and economically. Many tourist areas and islands were inundated this year. It piles up on beaches, sometimes many feet thick covering large area of shore waters and begins to decay. In the process of decay, the hydrogen sulphide that gets released smells like rotting eggs and many resorts had to close their doors. Hydrogen sulphide is dangerous to humans in large quantities, causing headaches, dizziness, nausea and even asthma has been reported in some local communities. Since the species are Sargassum natans and Sargassum fluitans float they block sunlight creating dead zone beneath them because plants under need sunlight to survive. The cleanup and removal of sargassum is an expensive task because they come in large quantities at fast rate which makes the traditional and modern clean up method very high cost dependent.

Solution

This project is about building a fully automation cleanup mechanism that can trap, collect and transport the incoming Sargassum in shore land without ground accessibility interference at all times. This is done by installing special kind of pipe line that have opening in the forth quadrant seen from the left side or in the first quadrant seen from the right side taking the center as origin on the shore land near to the shore water that enables the special pipe line trap, collect and transport the incoming Sargassum at all time without any human interaction. As the wave of the shore water pushes the Sargassum in to the land, the pushed Sargassum will be forced to enter in to the special pipe through the opening with some of the water. As the water enters in to the special pipe line it will travel to perpendicular direction from where is came from because of the pipe line shape pushing the Sargassum with it. This will make the Sargassum distribute horizontally and not settle in one location. The installed special pipe line also will be used for drainage system for local community so there will be some force that will push the Sargassum in the special pipe line in to one direction with the sea water. This will make the Sargassum travel with the drainage system pushed from the shore where the resorts are located in to some other destination where it will be captured by a simple net system installed at the end o the pipe line like the Australian sewer line initial filtration system. Note that the pipe line before and after it reaches the shore land where Sargassum will be clean will have standard shame without any opening in its side.

For more information please visit https://hackaday.io/project/178155-caribbean-sargassum-problem-80