“STREAM is part-funded by the ERDF through the Ireland Wales Programme”
The Sensor Technology for Remote Environmental Aquatic Monitoring (STREAM) project held its first post Covid workshop and partner meeting at the Walton Institute, Carriganore, Co. Waterford on Wednesday 11th and Thursday 12th May 2022.
The conference consisted of STREAM partners {(South East Technological University (SETU), Swansea University (SU) and Munster Technological University (MTU)}, BIM (Irish Sea Fisheries Board), Wexford County Council and a representative from the Southern Assembly. In addition, there were online speakers from the Marine Institute (MI) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Prof. David Gethin (SU – WCPC) gave a great insight into the formation of 2D printed sensors at WCPC and their applications in the environment. A trio of presenters, Dr. Naghmeh Kamali, Mike Grew and Dr. Ambrose Furey from MTU spoke in detail about “The Application of SPATT (Solid Phase Adsorption Toxin Tracking) for the pre-concentration of biotoxin and organic compounds from marine, estuary and freshwaters.” Subsequently Prof. Carlos Garcia de Leaniz (SU, CSAR) presented online about “Modelling the impacts of climate change on finfish in the Irish Sea”. In this talk he explained their work on investigating fish behaviour in relation to environmental cues and modelling using data provided by the EPA in predicting the impacts of climate change on marine species.
A slide provided by Prof. Carlos Garcia de Leaniz (SU, CSAR) depicting the impact of an increased sea surface temperature (SST) of 0.6 OC per decade on a fish species they studied.
Dave Clarke (Marine Institute) then spoke online about Monitoring for Harmful Algal Blooms (HAB’s) around the coast of Ireland and other MI studies. After lunch Hugh O’Sullivan/ Benyuan YU and Dr Mitra Abedini (SETU) gave some practical demonstrations of STREAM sensors, commercial detectors and showed live data coming from sensors. Brendan Cooney (Wexford, County Council) spoke about a range of environmental monitoring being undertaken by the council and the requirement for more data. This talk was closely followed by Dr Robert Wilkes (EPA) about their activities in collection information on Coastal and Transitional water bodies and how the assessment of the status of a waterbody is reached using various sources of measurements.
John Ronan (SETU) concluded the meeting with an interesting presentation on the STREAM weather stations and technical description of the architecture that goes on behind the data acquisition and management. Subsequent to the conference there was a STREAM partner meeting.
On Thursday 12th of May ten of the STREAM partners visited Bannow Bay which is a significant oyster growing area where studies are ongoing into various inputs impacts on water quality. Eoin Kinsella (Project Manager for Duncannon Blue Flag Farming & Community Scheme EIP) provided a great insight into some of the environmental pressures in the area and how he and his colleagues are working with stakeholders to ameliorate the issues. Later on that day we visited a monitoring station in the process of being established at Wellington Bridge and the active STREAM and Wexford Co. Co. operational site on the key in Wexford town.
