Study On The Current Status And Future Development Of Coastal Ocean Observation System Based On Observational Stations And Buoys

In order to exploit and utilize the ocean, it is needed to understand and manage it. The ocean is so important in economic development, disaster prevention, environmental protection and national defense that many countries pay much attention to ocean observation system. A large number of coastal observational stations and buoys have been built to measure various ocean parameters.China's coastline is approximately 18,000 km and islands coastline is about 14,000 km. Although there have been a number of coastal observational stations, there exit several problems. First, the number of stations is relatively few and the distribution is unreasonable to a certain extent. Second, the setting of observational stations, observation instruments and methods all need to improve. On these problems, systematical analysis and research are needed to serve the scientific exploration, management and protection of coastal ocean.In the present, the current status of coastal observational stations and buoys of China were examined firstly. Then the existing problems on the quantity of observational stations, continuity of observed data, observational instruments and method, setting of observational spots, and use and share of observed data are analyzed in detail.Several main problems on the coastal ocean observational stations of China are shown as follows:The first problem is on the representativeness of the current ocean observational stations. Most of these observational stations were built upon the conditions of social, economy and oceanographic research level on that time. According to current development requirements, the quantity of observational stations especially those along the islands is insufficient The observation is lacking in pertinence for the offshore amphidromic points, local storm surge, offshore ecosystem and some estuaries, and more, the data from marine platforms also have not been effectively applied yet.Secondly, the observing time and layer of some ocean hydrological elements are lack of reasonableness. Most elements are observed at a single layer, such an observation can not satisfy the actual requirement.The third problem is on the connection of new and old marine data that were observed in different periods. The new and old data are different in sampling, frequency, accuracy, objectivity, systematic, etc due to the change of observing spots, the improvement of the observing instruments and technique. This problem affects the integrality, accuracy, consistency and compatibility of the observed data. Therefore, special study on the data connection and assimulation is necessary.Focusing on the problems mentioned above, it is proposed to synthetically the time-space representativeness of all the ocean stations. Based on the results of the assessment, these problems can be solved in a planed way, for ocean research so as to provide effective, real-time and long-time series measurement data, and to provide reliable databasis for ocean management.In addition, according to foreign and domestic development trends of ocean observation, it is proposed to establish a station and buoy based coastal ocean observation system. The composition, function and expect target of the system are proposed and the feasibility and assurance measures are discussed in fational detail.