Coastal Marine Monitoring Experiments at the National Research Council in Messina, Italy: 30 Years of Research

Abstract

Coastal marine monitoring is a specialized field of research requiring the acquisition of long-term datasets regarding the main physico-chemical and biological variables that characterize the aquatic environments as a key strategy to depict the environmental status and its possible changes due to natural or anthropogenic stressors. During the last few decades, the devices used in this research field underwenta great evolution. This progress has been made possible by the advancement of the technologies and data processing that have resulted in the availability of new systems for autonomous monitoring. This paper reviews the state of the art of coastal marine monitoring systems developed since 1988 at the Istituto Sperimentale Talassografico—Experimental Thalassographic Institute of Messina (CNR IST), a part of the Italian National Research Council, and continued when the Institute was incorporated into the Istituto per l’Ambiente Marino Costiero—Institute for Marine Coastal Environment (IAMC). The research activity focused on coastal marine monitoring starting at the end of 1988 and lasting for about 30 years, up to the re-organization of the CNR Institutes. This event led to the redistribution of former marine research centers into new Institutes, with missions different to those characterizing the previous structures. Monitoring experiments were performed, and new automatic devices were developed and tested. Some of these systems, including water samplers and integrated data acquisition and transmission systems, are reported.