Coastal water quality buoys

Council has three coastal water quality monitoring buoys which are deployed every quarter. Deployments last for 30 days and the buoys collect data about water temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, turbidity and chlorophyll-a every fifteen minutes. One buoy is located in the Waitangi Estuary in the Bay of Islands, another is offshore outside the Bay of Islands, on the northern side of the Ninepin and the other is located at the Hātea River in Whangārei Harbour. We also have a continuous water quality monitoring device at Tikinui Wharf in the Kaipara Harbour.

Data from the buoys provides council with information about water quality at the two sites and helps us to understand how water quality varies over diurnal and tidal cycles and how big rain events affect water quality. The data can also help us to identify environmental issues.

Get the coastal water quality data from our environmental data hub