A major difficulty in monitoring hydro-ecology of lakes in the Arctic is that many locations are remote, often only accessible by helicopter or float plane. This problem makes visiting these sites frequently for monitoring purposes very difficult due to the high cost of conducting research in the North. In addition, bad weather in summer and harsh conditions in winter interfere with planned field trips to research sites. As a result of these problems, AXYS has teamed up with Environment Canada, Water & Climate Research Centre and the Department of Geography at the University of Victoria to design and develop a fully-automated Ice Buoy and subsurface mooring system for continuous year-round, real-time monitoring of:
- weather conditions
- lake ice cover (Fall initiation, Winter growth, Spring breakup)
- light penetration into the lake (through ice in winter)
- lake water quality (chemistry, temperature, oxygen levels)
Once installed into a lake, the system runs on solar power and sealed internal batteries. The system can run autonomously for very long periods of time without the need for frequent visits by researchers or technicians.
The subsurface mooring includes a tethered array of water quality probes to measure temperature, dissolved oxygen, and water chemistry at multiple depths in the lake. It also includes an Ice Profiler Sensor (IPS) to measure the development, growth and decay of the lake ice cover through the cold season. Data from the subsurface mooring system is transmitted to the adjacent Ice Buoy for processing via an acoustic modem.
On the Ice Buoy itself, weather conditions including wind speed & direction, air temperature, relative humidity, and air pressure will be measured using a cluster of sensors located at the top of the buoy.
The full dataset from the Ice Buoy and subsurface mooring system will be transmitted to a base station located at the Water & Climate Impacts Research Centre (W-CIRC) located at the University of Victoria via satellite telemetry. The 2-way capability allows remote system management including configuration and diagnostics of both the Ice Buoy and subsurface mooring components. The system is designed for year round deployment and the acoustic release on the subsurface mooring enables all the components to be easily recoverable from the lake at the end of the research.
Please contact us directly if you would like to learn more.