INTRODUCTION

Cruise MNG01_09, coordinated by ISMAR-CNR of Bologna, has been dedicated to the ADRICOSM-STAR project (coordinating Institution CMCC, scientific Coordinator Prof. Nadia Pinardi) and to MEDPOL activities. ADRICOSM-STAR "... aims at the development and partial implementation of an integrated coastal area and river and urban waters management system that considers both observational and modelling components." The research area is the Montenegro and Albanian coastal and marginal zone, inclusive of Kotor Bay (Boka Kotorska). The project involves 19 public and private partners from Italy, Montenegro, Serbia and Albania and has a duration of 3 years starting from March 2007.

This is the third cruise in the area of Montenegro, following the cruise ADR08 R/V Dalla Porta July 2008 and ADR02_08 R/V Urania of October 2008 [Bignami et al.(2008)]. The cruise objectives were:

• To continue the systematic mapping of the study zone sea bottom and sub-bottom with Multibeam and CHIRP technology
• To collect sediment samples in selected stations for sedimentological and chemical analysis
• To collect meteorological and continuous on-going CTD data.
• To provide on-field training

Multibeam and CHIRP data will be used to assess the geological and surficial and subsurficial morphological setting, other than help to update bathymetric maps. Among the settings we may cite sediment transport pathways, such as accumulation and erosion areas, and risk and hazard studies. In addition, high resolution bathymetric data will be used to construct digital terrain models useful for regional modelling of wave and current dynamics. As a result of this investigation the owners of the data will also be able to produce environmental and geological maps at variuos scales. In particular, Kotor Bay data, along with pollution data from sediment samples, will be used to optimize the wastewater disposal effort in environmentally safe conditions.

This paper reports the shipboard activities during the cruise, including description of the ship, equipment and their usage, along with details of the general settings, performances and some scientific and technical results.

CHIRP SBP and Multibeam bathymetric data were acquired allover planned routes or during transits, from the SE to N, and the seafloor was sampled by box-corer and gravity corer in predetermined stations in front of the Bojana River and S of Bar. In particular, the planning of routes were dictated by the aim of obtaining full coverage multibeam images.

Hydrological measurements include CTD vertical profiles (pressure, temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, light transmission, fluorimetry). Among the many parameters, T, S, Pressure were used to provide to the MBES the necessary water column speed of sound profile (Chen and Millero). Data were extracted from the 1 or 2 m averaged profiles, and input on the MBES console. A procedure was set up in order to make easier the handling of the procedure, in particular for the extension of data to the depth of 12000m, as required by the SIS Kongsberg's software. The procedure is explained in Appendix .