Scientific information on the Irish and Celtic Sea environments is expected to be improved when two research buoys stationed off the south-east coast begin to transmit data.
The buoys were deployed off Rosslare Harbour yesterday as part of a joint Irish-Welsh initiative by the new National Assembly for Wales and the Marine Institute in Dublin. Two similar buoys have already been launched off the south-west, at Fastnet and in Bantry Bay.
The buoys support an array of scientific instrumentation, designed to monitor and collect data on sea temperature, currents, fluorescence and suspended particulate matter at selected depths throughout the water column. They are powered by wind and solar energy.
The information will be transmitted back to Marine Informatics Ltd in Dublin and the School of Ocean Sciences at the University of Wales in Bangor.
The statistics will be supplemented by research cruises conducted on Irish and Welsh vessels, and the objective of the project is to improve the knowledge and understanding of water exchange between the Irish and Celtic Seas.
This will aid prediction models that support the needs of coastal administrators, regulatory groups and researchers, and is "invaluable" to the fishing industry, according to the Marine Institute.
