This region of the Victorian coastline has strong seasonal upwelling and supports one of the most productive marine regions in Australian coastal waters.
The strong seasonal upwelling in the shelf waters between Cape Jaffa and Cape Otway (the Bonney upwelling) supports one of the most productive marine regions in Australian coastal waters including large populations of Blue and Southern Right whales, Australian fur seals, sharks, and southern blue-fin tuna, together with important State and Commonwealth fisheries, and a growing charter and recreational fishing industry.
The IMOS mooring on the Bonney Coast is deployed in 100 m of water and carries a series of monitoring equipment through the water column to measure currents, pH, temperature, salinity and oxygen. The instrumentation will provide scientists with a better understanding of the upwelling system through the sustained monitoring of water quality and currents in the region, as well as important knowledge about the impacts of ocean acidification.
The mooring was first deployed in June 2019 by researchers from Deakin University and the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) off the coast of Portland, in south-west Victoria. The IMOS mooring is managed collaboratively between Deakin University and SARDI with additional contributions for instrumentation provided by the CSIRO and the Environment Protection Authority Victoria. The mooring has recently been serviced and redeployed in August 2021.
The moorings data will provide insights into physical influences on marine megafauna such as Blue whales that congregate in the region for feeding during the upwelling season, fisheries such as rock lobster, abalone and giant crab settlement and habitat preference, and the drivers of shifts in food web dynamics and overall ecosystem productivity.
Colocation with other IMOS infrastructure including the Animal Tracking Facility’s acoustic receiver network, and proposed AUV deployments will improve the national coverage along the southern Australian seaboard. IMOS New Technology Proving and State initiatives such as the deployment of directional wave buoys will provide some exciting opportunities for data integration and reach for impact across sectors and marine jurisdictions.
Data details:
The data from the Victoria Mooring sub-Facility appear in several collections on the AODN Portal. Including:
IMOS – Moorings – Hourly time-series product
IMOS – Moorings – Gridded time-series product
IMOS – Australian National Mooring Network (ANMN) – CTD Profiles
The mooring’s site code is VBM100, so to select the data only from the Bonney Coast mooring enter the code into the filter on the left.