WUWnet Abstract

"Needs for Sensor Networks in the Nearshore Environment"

Robert F. Chen

Bob Morris, Rob Stevenson, John Duff, Meng Zhou,

Francesco Peri, Bernie Gardner, Jun Suzuki

UMassBoston, Center for Coastal Environmental Sensing Networks

With 50% of the world’s population living within 100 km of the coast, human populations significantly impacting coastal zones (e.g. eutrophication), and coastal environments significantly impacting human activities (e.g, Hurricane Katrina), an increase in quantity and quality of information is clearly needed to support the sustainable development of coastal areas for the foreseeable future. Because people cannot see underneath the ocean, because the coastal zone is so complex on multiple scales, and because the coastal zone supplies such a diverse set of goods and services, the requirements for coastal sensor networks are challenging to say the least.

Coastal environmental sensor networks can provide much needed information but have been limited due to technological challenges in underwater communications and sensor development, interoperability challenges of multiple users and scales, economic challenges of high costs of sensors, infrastructure and maintenance, and educational challenges of a lack of awareness by decision-makers of what information can be provided by sensor networks. Many of these challenges are currently being overcome by a wide variety of approaches.

This talk will highlight five requirements for effective design and deployment of coastal sensor networks and give examples of each. 1) Who will pay $10 for the information provided by the sensor network? 2) Can an eighth grader understand the information as it is provided? 3) Does the sensor network support a predictive model so that decisions can be made? 4) Are the end-users involved in the sensor network design? 5) Is the sensor network adaptable, expandable, and interoperable so that it may serve multiple purposes?

Given these design criteria, coastal sensor networks can provide a wealth of information to a variety of people so that coastal hazards can be minimized, coastal goods and services can be maximized, and more and more people can better understand how they are inextricably linked with the ocean.