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Hands Off and High-Quality Data: Using the HydroCAT-EP V2 to Get the Full Picture of a Dynamic Aquatic Ecosystem
“King County, Washington’s mooring program is designed to collect continuous oceanographic and meteorological data every 15 minutes in Central Puget Sound. The high-frequency time series dataset allows us to track long-term trends, interannual variability, and spatial differences between our deployment sites. The data are publicly available and routinely used by various organizations including NANOOS, UW-APL, and the Seattle Aquarium.
Continuous data from the moorings supplement our roughly twice-monthly boat operations done with a profiling CTD (SBE 25plus with SBE 32). The moorings fill in data between sampling events and help to define the natural variability of each sensor’s deployment environment—something that we’d miss, or have to interpolate, if we didn’t have automated data collection. While most of our HydroCAT-EPs at the moorings are limited to a single depth close to the surface, these data help us understand events like phytoplankton blooms and the effects of local weather. With the additional context of our full-depth profile data, the moorings help to paint a much more complete picture of Puget Sound.
The HydroCAT-EP V2 fits into the program by providing most of our underwater measurements in a relatively hands-off way, with good data quality and reliability. In most cases, we can deploy a single instrument for around six months, with a few visits to clean and service the equipment throughout that deployment. Integration with our data loggers via SDI-12 is convenient and eases the burden of data transmission and handling of all mooring parameters.”
You can find more information about our active moorings on the King County website.
Source: Greg Ikeda, Oceanographer, King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks
