Biological monitoring with the Western Canadian ODAS marine buoy network

Optical sensors are being added to some of the 17 meteorological ODAS (Ocean Data Acquisition System) buoys which provide weather and ocean data along and off the west coast of Canada for the Environment and the Fisheries departments of the Canadian Federal Government. The added sensors, installed on two meter discus buoys so far, measure insolation, water colour, salinity and fluorescence. They are planned to provide time series of surface water properties that can be linked to ocean colour images from satellites such as Seawifs. These satellite images show coastal physical and biological patterns in space and time for fisheries management and climate-related studies. Buoy data are presented and discussed to show the progress that is being made towards a system for operational monitoring of coastal productivity patterns