Rib Reef Deployments of the Wireless Sensor Network

Brief description

Sensor network infrastructure was installed at Rib Reef in the central Great Barrier Reef off Townsville, Australia. The infrastructure consists of a single 1300 mm buoy located off the north (front) of the reef. The buoy has an Inductive Modem (IM) line that extends from the buoy to the bottom and then along the bottom for around 50 m and then rises to flotation located 9 m below the surface. Instruments are located on this riser to give a profile through the water column.The station is designed to measure temperature of the water column at the front of the reef and in particular to detect upwelling and other events where warmer bottom water is pushed across the shelf onto the reefs. This not only indicates processes operating across the shelf but also conditions when coral bleaching may be more common. The station is part of a larger network of real time monitoring stations deployed to give real time information about environmental conditions on reefs. This station is located to detect movement of bottom water across the continental shelf and in particular upwelling events pushed from the Coral Sea into the larger lagoon of the Great Barrier Reef. Such events are linked to warm water events on reefs including coral bleaching. The FAIMMS Project is part of the GBROOS or Great Barrier Reef Ocean Observing System project which in turn is part of the Australian Integrated Marine Observing System or IMOS.

Lineage

Maintenance and Update Frequency: continual

Statement: Statement: All sensors are factory calibrated and serviced every six months.Statement: Data are checked against a set of rules and then flagged using the IODE set of flags.

Notes

Credit
Bainbridge, Scott, Mr (Point Of Contact)