SmartBuoys
These autonomous systems are moored, automated, multi-parameter recording platforms used to collect marine environmental data. The data they collect aid or provide:
- evidence used for eutrophication assessments
- improved understanding of environmental variability
- new insights into ecosystem function
- monitoring change in marine biodiversity
- improved model validation and testing
- confirming satellite imagery of the sea ("ground truthing").
Over ten years of high-frequency data has provided our customers with robust data sets, enabling them to make sound decisions about water quality, for example.
Our SmartBuoys collect high-frequency timeseries of surface (at 1 metre) salinity, temperature, turbidity, oxygen saturation, chlorophyll fluorescence and nitrate concentration. Water samples are collected and preserved onboard for later analysis of nutrients and phytoplankton species. Deployments can, for instance, highlight increases in nutrient-rich freshwater inputs and the variable timing of springtime blooms.
