Monitoring the Ocean Environment with Large-Area Wireless Sensor Networks

Ocean covers almost three quarters (71%) of the surface of the earth that must be continuously observed to e.g. detect climate changes or pollution of the environment which effects human and animal habitat. Currently used methods are cost and time expensive and they neither allow a required large-area sampling nor a high resolution of measuring grid. In this paper, we emphasize advantages of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) in the oceanography, we point out differences to terrestrial WSNs and we suggest applications. A WSN consists of thousands of sensor nodes, each node containing a processing unit, a transceiver, memory, a battery and sensors [1]. Current terrestrial applications include the prevention of wood fire or the detection of leakages along a dike. The new approach is to verify the advantages of WSNs in the oceanography to enhance main objectives: hydrography, eutrophication and detection of pollution [2]. In several research groups the utilization of oceanic WSNs is studied. Ong et al. describe a randomly distributed WSN over a lake or drinking water reservoir measuring the pH-values with magneto elastic sensors ensuring drinking water safety [3]. Another approach is made by Dunkels et al. using a sensor network for monitoring water temperature and salinity significantly reducing the cost of marine research [4]. The network will be deployed in the northern part of the Baltic Sea, where fresh water movements affect temperature and salinity. Our research group [5] deals with the development of middleware, routing of information, security and localization of nodes in WSNs [6]. In cooperation with the resident „Baltic Sea Research Institute Warnemuende“ [7], we discuss useful approaches for WSN’s in the oceanography [8].