Real-time chlorophyll and nutrient data from a new marine data buoy in Southampton Water, UK

This paper describes the development of a multiparameter buoy for real-time monitoring of nutrient concentrations and other parameters important to the study of nutrient fluxes in a coastal environment. The integration of a unique and novel instrumentation, package into a single moored buoy enables accurate near real time calibration of models of photosynthetic plankton growth in estuarine conditions. Results from 1996 show clearly that chlorophyll concentrations vary on several levels of scale, all of which depend, in the main, on the increase or decrease of tidal energy. Data from the nutrient correlate with samples collected and analyzed by conventional techniques. The nitrate sensor results show that nitrate levels are higher on neap tides, possibly clue to a smaller tidal prism