Instrumentation for continuous monitoring in marine environments

Continuous monitoring data are a useful source of information for the understanding of seasonal chemical and biological changes in marine environments. They are useful to estimate nutrient dynamics, primary and secondary production as well as to assess C, N, P fluxes associated with biogeochemical cycling. More and better water quality data is needed to calculate Maximum Permissible Loading of coastal waters and we need better data to assess trends, to determine current status and impairments, and to test water quality models. For a long time these requirements were not met satisfactorily due to the absence of suitable instrumentation in the market. SYSTEA has tried to bridge this gap since ten years with the development of several field analyzers (NPA, NPA Plus and Pro, DPA series and latest is the WIZ-probe) and by participating in several R&D European projects (EXOCET/D, WARMER) we have proven our ability to build reliable and efficient in-situ probes which are now commercially available. The choice to work in collaboration with scientific institutions specialized in marine ecosystem study has been made very early by SYSTEA and is actually the only company able to offer a complete range of in-situ probes for continuous nutrient analysis, using its exclusive mu-LFA technology fully developed by SYSTEA, in collaboration with Sysmedia S.r.I with remote management capabilities. These innovative technical solutions allow deploying their DPA probe down to - 1500 m depth, maintaining a high level of accuracy and robustness as proved during the European project EXOCET/D in 2006. The WIZ probe is the latest development of SYSTEA, the state of the art portable "in-situ" probe, to measure up to four chemical parameters continuously in surface waters or marine environments. The innovative design allows an easy handling and field deployment by the user. WIZ probe allows, in the standard configuration, the detection of four nutrient parameters (orthophosphate, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate) in low concentrations while autonomously managing the well tested spectrophotometric wet chemistries, and an advanced fluorimetric method for ammonia measurement. Analytical methods have been developed for several other parameters including silicates, iron and trace metals. Results are directly recorded in concentration units; all measured values are stored with date, time and sample optical density (O.D.). The same data are remotely available through a serial communication port, which allows the complete probe configuration and remote control using the external Windows based Wiz Control Panel software.