Backyard Buoys Gives Ocean Wave Data to Coastal Communities

ACEP Researchers Eloise Brown and Stephanie Fisher were recently awarded funding to participate in Phase II of Backyard Buoys, a subaward from AOOS, funded by the NSF Convergence Accelerator program. With project partners across the Alaskan Arctic, Pacific Northwest and South Pacific, this project will deliver high-tech wave buoys with real-time data access into the hands of residents of remote coastal communities to complement existing local knowledge. 

Brown and Fisher's role in Backyard Buoys will be to work with partners from AOOS and the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission (AEWC) to deploy Spotter wave buoys by Sofar Ocean to 11 AEWC communities in the Arctic. Work has begun on this project, with Fisher attending the Phase II kick off meeting and Brown's recent travel to Utqiaġvik for a Backyard Buoys co-production workshop hosted by Barrow Whaling Captains Association, AWEC and AOOS. ACEP researchers are involved in the Buoy Building, Education, and Data Tools working groups. See press releases on the AOOS website for full details of this exciting project:

For more information on this project, please contact Eloise Brown at eloise.brown@alaska.edu.