Estuarine and Coastal Moorings - Australia - Near real-time data

Updated: 2026-08-14

The IMOS Estuarine and Coastal Moorings Facility was establised to provide a national, standardised network of estuarine and coastal moorings with a primary focus on water quality observations. This collection brings together other non-IMOS funded (coinvested) monitoring sites or observation networks (e.g. SA Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB) coastal monitoring network) and IMOS-funded buoys which provide an expansion of IMOS’s observations in estuarine and coastal environments. Initial IMOS mooring deployments focused on the interface between land and sea, in typical estuarine environments, within the tidal incursion zone. In the first phase, the estuarine network will consist of 2 moorings in each State and Territory (aside from the ACT) monitoring surface conditions. The second phase will focus on further expanding the estuarine network and establishing a network of coastal moorings to monitor near-real time, near-shore oceanographic processes and environmental parameters in regions of high-significance. Small to medium sized buoys are deployed in shallow waters and anchored securely to the seabed or to fixed infrastructure. These moorings are from the Xylem DB platform range. The DB range of telemetered data buoys allow for easy deployment, maintenance and provide future monitoring flexibility, in various types of environmental conditions. Each mooring measures pressure, temperature, salinity, chlorophyll-a (fluorescence), dissolved oxygen, turbidity, and fDOM, with the option to include additional sensors to measure currents, pH, or nutrients. Some of these variables are essential ocean variables (EOVs) some are sub-variables. Moorings are typically serviced every two to three months to clean and re-calibrate sensors, replace components, and collect in-situ water samples for sensor validation. Complimentary CTD profiles will be taken at servicing intervals to assist the sensor validation. Where applicable, the sampling protocols of the current IMOS National Reference Stations will be followed. Deployment and maintenance of estuarine moorings will be undertaken by regional operators. Near real-time data (15 minute intervals) are processed by the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) and quality controlled in accordance with the Integrated Ocean Observing System’s QARTOD protocols (http://www.ioos.noaa.gov/qartod/; https://www.ioccp.org/images/D4standards/IOC-OceanDataStandards54-3-2013.pdf). These data are made available through both the AODN Portal and IMOS Live.