Development of the B4+ Mini Buoy design

This dataset contains acceleration data seven ‘Mini Buoys’ (low-cost sensors for measuring inundation duration, current velocity, and wave orbital velocity from acceleration data) and local water levels used in a pilot study to determine the effect of weight and tether length on the sensitivity of the B4+ Mini Buoy to detecting hydrodynamics.

Nine B4+ Mini Buoys, each sampling acceleration values along the y-axis at 1 Hz, were deployed adjacent to a water level (pressure) logger (In-Situ Rugged TROLL 100) on the tidal flat in front of Caerlaverock saltmarsh, Solway Firth, Scotland (54°58’05”N, 3°31’58”W) between the 15th and 24th of September 2020. Prior to deployment and after retrieving them, the loggers were inserted into a bucket of water for 1 minute to determine logger position in the tube. Each logger was fitted with different weights of ballast and different tether lengths. The pressure logger was set to sample at 1-minute intervals. Unfortunately, two loggers were lost during the deployment.

Mean acceleration values were taken for that period and compared to determine sensor movement in the tube. Pressure from tidal inundation was corrected for atmospheric pressure by interpolating during non-inundated periods and subtracting the difference from the pressure data. Water levels were calculated, and interpolated to 1 second intervals to match the Mini Buoy data. Elevation difference between the tidal flat, pressure logger, and Mini Buoy were corrected for using GPS (Leica Viva rtkGPS) to determine water levels at each Mini Buoy.

For related research data, visit the 'Calibration of inundation, current velocity, and wave orbital velocity from acceleration data' dataset.

For further research data, please visit the 'Living Deltas Hub' collection.