Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/P003443/1
Initial development and laboratory testing of a ChLorophyll Absorption Meter (CLAM)
Grant Award
- Principal Investigator:
- Dr G Dall'Olmo, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Remote Sensing Group
- Co-Investigator:
- Professor WAM Nimmo Smith, University of Plymouth, Sch of Biological and Marine Sciences
- Grant held at:
- Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Remote Sensing Group
- Science Area:
- Freshwater
- Marine
- Overall Classification:
- Unknown
- ENRIs:
- Biodiversity
- Environmental Risks and Hazards
- Global Change
- Natural Resource Management
- Pollution and Waste
- Science Topics:
- Environmental Sensors
- Optical Sensors
- Instrumentation Eng. & Dev.
- Environmental Sensors
- Instrumentation Eng. & Dev.
- Optical Sensors
- Biogeochemical Cycles
- Biodiversity
- Carbon cycling
- Primary production
- Water quality
- Biodiversity
- Carbon cycling
- Coastal margins
- Primary production
- Biogeochemical Cycles
- Water quality
- Optical Sensors
- Environmental Sensors
- Instrumentation Eng. & Dev.
- Abstract:
- Invisible microscopic algae in the ocean and freshwaters (phytoplankton) are plants that photosynthesise by absorbing solar radiation. In doing so, they provide half of the oxygen we breathe, they support marine ecosystem and the fisheries upon which we depend on, and absorb large quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere. Thus phytoplankton are a crucial component of oceanic and freshwater ecosystems that sustains human population. To be able to effectively predict future changes in phytoplankton and manage environmental resources, it is therefore fundamental to accurately quantify the current stocks and variability of microscopic algae living in marine and freshwater bodies. Since all phytoplankton are provided with the photosynthetic pigment chlorophyll-a, the concentration of this pigment (chl) is typically used as a proxy for phytoplankton biomass. However, current methods to determine chl either rely on laborious and expensive collection and laboratory analyses of discrete water samples, or on highly-inaccurate in-situ measurements of chlorophyll fluorescence. Although in-situ fluorescence has the advantage of providing high-resolution measurements, it is affected by phytoplankton physiological processes that render in-situ fluorescence-based estimates of chl highly inaccurate, even if calibrated using collocated discrete data. For example, the ratio of fluorescence to chlorophyll-a concentration can vary by up to a factor 6 due to variations in solar irradiance. As a consequence, *accurate* chl estimates are currently extremely scarce preventing effective management of water resources. The overall objective of this project is to develop and test a prototype of an instrument that ultimately will provide high-resolution in-situ estimates of chl in with unprecedented accuracy. Specifically, we will develop an initial laboratory prototype which will undergo multiple tests and improvements to achieve highly stable and highly accurate measurements of chl. We envision that this instrument could become the new standard method for automatically measuring chl in situ and in the laboratory. This instrument could also be deployed in continuous mode on ships and on autonomous platforms such as gliders and profiling floats, thus greatly extending the availability of highly-accurate and high-resolution in-situ measurements of chl.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/P003443/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Directed (RP) - NR1
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Tech Proof of Concept
This grant award has a total value of £115,303
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| DI - Other Costs | Indirect - Indirect Costs | DA - Investigators | DI - Staff | DA - Estate Costs | DA - Other Directly Allocated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £10,899 | £25,939 | £17,188 | £31,905 | £14,357 | £15,015 |
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