Conservation & Protection - Coastal Monitoring

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Introduction

This web-site aims to provide up-to-date data on coastal water quality acquired from a network of remotely moored monitoring stations in Loughs Foyle and Carlingford.  The Loughs Agency have contracted the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) to manage the project.  The information generated by the stations are sent to a base station at AFBI where it is processed and formatted to go online.

Background

Monitoring of 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, remotely deployed automated in-situ instruments capable of monitoring a range of physico-chemical and environmental variables have been developed.

Current Project

The Loughs Agency have employed these systems in Foyle and Carlingford for a number of years. There are currently two systems in Lough Foyle and two in Carlingford Lough, while there is an additional system moored several miles offshore of Lough Foyle.  The information is extremely useful to the Agency in managing the aquaculture and the wild shellfisheries in the sea loughs and is aiding in the development of carrying capacity models for these areas. In addition the data are feeding into wider environmental monitoring programmes undertaken by government agencies such as the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA), the Marine Institute and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and support the implementation of international obligations such as the Water Frame Work Directive.

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

These moored monitoring stations are supported by a programme of spatial surveying on a regular basis. This allows a full review of the water body to be undertaken putting the fixed point “sentinel” mooring station in environmental context.

Monitored Sites:

• Lough Foyle North
• Lough Foyle South
• Carlingford Lough North
• Carlingford Lough South