Coastal water quality parameters are being remotely measured across a network of sites by the North
of Ireland Joint Agency Coastal Monitoring Programme. This is a collaborative project between the Department
of the Environment's (DOE) Environment
and Heritage Service (EHS), the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD), The Loughs Agency
and Queen’s University Belfast.
This web-site aims to provide up-to-date data on coastal water quality acquired
from a network of remotely moored monitoring stations that send data to a base station at DARD through
GSM modem links.
Monitoring of the offshore and coastal seas has historically
been carried out at fixed estuarine and coastal sites during periodic surveys. Although providing good
spatial coverage, sampling frequency is unable to resolve temporal variability adequately. As a result,
the development of automated in-situ instruments capable of remote deployment that monitor a range of
physico-chemical and environmental variables has occurred. Systems developed by the Centre for Environment,
Fisheries and Aquaculture Science.(CEFAS) and DARD have
been remotely monitoring selected coastal sites around the UK.
A second generation
of instruments is now being deployed in sensitive coastal and estuarine sites around N. Ireland to allow
high resolution monitoring. Data provided by this project will be available rapidly and will have many
practical benefits such as
- Better quality information for pollution
control, water management and policy development
- Current high resolution data available
for public and scientific scrutiny and use
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