OCEAN-HK News
First Piloting Cruise will start in July
2017-06-21
OCEAN_HK is going to have the first cruise in coming July in the Pearl River Estuary (PRE) and over the adjacent shelf. A high-resolution repeated mapping will be conducted over an approximately 13,000 km2 area of the river-estuary-shelf (RES) throughout the whole July, to identify spatiotemporal biophysical responses to variable physical and biogeochemical forcing.
OCEAN_HK will deploy a small research vessel in the estuary (Fig. 1) and a large research vessel in the adjacent shelf (Fig.2).
Fig.1. A 8-day cruise will be conducted in PRE with 32 stations.
Fig.2. A 24-day cruise will be conducted in RES with 83 stations.
The objectives of this cruise is to identify the status and variability of the eutrophication and hypoxia condition in the coastal ocean surrounding Hong Kong, and its response to physical; and biogeochemical processes in the study area, and to analysis the impact of riverine and oceanic processes on summer ocean conditions in the hypoxia areas surrounding Hong Kong.
The parameters to be measured in the repeated mapping included ocean currents, hydrographic and meteorological variables, biogeochemical variables, and micro-pollutants associated with eutrophication, hypoxia, and HABs etc. We will also measure physical parameters (e.g. velocity profile, particle size and settling velocity) in sediment and quantify its fluxes of nutrient and particulate OM.
In order to well prepare for the cruise, OCEAN_HK hold a cruise meeting on 17 May 2017 in Shenzhen. It was attended by all cruise members from involved Universities, including HKUST, HKU, PolyU, CityU and Xiamen University. Each party presented their cruise plans in details and there was an active discussion among all participants to ensure a better cooperation between groups during the cruise.
