Shortly before the end of 2019, the “EDYLIC” team from the LEEISA laboratory in Cayenne organized, in partnership with the French navy, a field trip off of the famous “Iles du Salut”. For the first time in French Guiana, a device used to characterize physico-chemical parameters of water has been deployed in the shallow waters. Check out this video to the learn more about the experiment (in French)
TamaraCroizeau, a researcher from the LEEISA laboratory boarded on theCaouanne – a ship from the French Navy whose mission is usually to watch the waters for illegal fishing – in order to deploy a marine probe off the coast of the « Iles du Salut » (redemption islands). The device is attached to a mooring and held underwater at a depth of ten meters.
This device is already in use in other parts of the world, but this deployment is the first of its kind in French Guiana and represents a unique opportunity to learn more on the marine environment in this part of the world. For the next three years, the probe will monitor the water quality by recording data on: dissolved oxygen, dissolved organic matter, chlorophyll a, salinity, turbidity and temperature.
These measurements will be used to better characterize coastal waters quality and their inter and intra annual variabilities and build a big data base that will be used for monitoring. At first, scientists will record data every other week to establish a baseline and quality check the information before moving to a monthly monitoring. The data recorded will then be used by several research teams in French Guiana and mainland France.
The measurements will be integrated to a large-scale program conducted as part of the DCE (European Water Framework Directive). The program aims at characterizing quality and color of coastal and transitional water bodies (estuaries) from remote sensing and in situ measurements.
Several institutions are co-funding this work: AFB (French Agency for Biodiversity), the French Water Office in Guiana, the DEAL (Department of Environment, Planning and Housing of Guyana). The project is led by CNRS researchers from both the LOG lab and the LEEISA lab.

The study was launched in September 2019 and will last three years. With CEBA researchers leading this effort in French Guiana, it is a good opportunity for CEBA to get more involved in marine research, a new priority for CEBA during its renewal phase 2020-2024.