Continuous Monitoring Buoy Network

Coastal water quality parameters are being remotely measured across a network of sites around Northern Ireland by a collaborative project between us, Department of Agriculture for Rural Development (DARD), and the Foyle, Carlingford and Irish Lights Commission (The Loughs Agency).

Water quality is measured by instruments at a number of moored monitoring stations that transmit the data via the mobile phone network back to a base station. The data is then made available in near real time on the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute website's Coastal Monitoring pagesOpens in new window..

Data provided by this project has many practical benefits:

  • Better quality information for pollution control, water management and policy development
  • High resolution data available for public and scientific scrutiny
  • This monitoring partially fulfils the requirements for the OSPAR Convention for the protection of the North East Atlantic and relevant European Commission (EC) Directives.