Long-term Acoustic Monitoring of Environmental Parameters in Estuaries

Coastal environment is controlled by a complex interaction of physical, chemical, biological, and geological processes. Physical processes are responsible for controlling the transport and distribution of all dissolved and suspended matters in coastal waters. A comprehensive understanding of these processes is crucial to the design and implementation of management strategies that track ecosystem health and protect coastal and estuarine waters from environmental and ecological disasters. To characterize the temporal processes occurring in the ocean, new types of infrastructure equipped with novel techniques, such as acoustical tomography, to facilitate cutting-edge oceanographic research are needed. These methods are capable of providing long-term, highresolution observations of critical environmental parameters.