Real time monitoring of Spanish coastal waters: The deep water network

Abstract Puertos del Estado has developed a series of networks to measure and monitor the marine environment in Spanish waters. This paper will focus on the so called “Deep Water Network”, consisting of 12 buoys measuring waves, currents, wind, atmospheric pressure and temperature, sea surface temperature and salinity. Information from the buoys is transmitted every hour via satellite Inmarsat in order to be quality controlled and distributed in real time via Internet. Additionally, directional wave information is propagated in real time to the mouths of the harbours by means of a wave phase- averaged model.