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GBO60×60
Context · 60×60
02 Strategic purpose

Why an offshore boundary

The intervention point is offshore, where drifting biomass can still be redirected before it fragments into many nearshore arrival pathways.

The problem is a pathway, not a single beach

Sargassum arrives from the Caribbean and its fate is decided at a single fork: entering the Cozumel Channel, between the mainland and the west shore of the island, where the current concentrates it and the easterly winds push it onto the beaches of Quintana Roo, or rounding Punta Celarain and climbing along the exterior, eastern coast of the island, where the current carries it towards the Gulf of Mexico and it completes its cycle at sea.

GBO 60×60 exists to make the second route the normal one. Once the biomass fragments near the shore, intervention becomes expensive, repetitive and local, so the strategic value of the corridor depends on how large and predictable a share of the flow it actually diverts.

Seven destinations in scope
  • Tulum
  • Cozumel
  • Playa del Carmen
  • Puerto Morelos
  • Benito Juárez
  • Isla Mujeres
  • Lázaro Cárdenas

Named in the source presentation as potential beneficiaries. A regional benefit map must show both expected protection and uncertainty, including routes that bypass the barrier.

A claim that must be tested
The source reports that more than 90 percent of the sargassum reaching major destinations in these areas passes through the Cozumel Channel. The project treats that figure as a hypothesis to verify, separate from the diversion target and separate from any reduction measured at an individual beach.
9,000
t/day
Reported summer offshore influx
86.4
Mtm
2027 projected basin biomass
>90
%
Channel share reported, to be tested

The presentation reports summer influxes of up to 9,000 tonnes per day offshore and projects more than 80 million metric tonnes across a much wider Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf domain in 2027. A daily local transport rate cannot be compared directly with a basin scale biomass estimate, and neither number independently determines the required capacity of the barrier.

Sargassum arrival on a beach. The arrival is the visible end of a pathway that begins offshore.
The Cozumel Channel, where the barrier alignment is proposed. The crossing carries the regional flow the project intends to work with.

What would count as success

Evaluate change against an agreed baseline, and include the ecological effects offshore and at the eventual destination of diverted biomass.

M01

Coastal arrivals

Mass reaching named destinations, over defined periods and adjusted for transport and weather.

M02

Water quality exposure

Nearshore indicators compared with baseline and control locations.

M03

Collection demand

Volume and cost of beach and nearshore removal actually avoided.

M04

Operational disruption

Availability of the barrier and the fleet, and the interruptions absorbed.

M05

Ecological response

Habitat and species effects offshore, and fate of the diverted material.

M06

Counterfactual

A defensible comparison case, without which no avoided loss can be claimed.

The project is therefore presented as a testable regional protection proposal with a clear physical mechanism, not as a guaranteed percentage reduction at every beach. Monitoring, modelling and adaptive operation are part of the mechanism itself.