The Otago Regional Council has applied to the Queenstown Lakes District Council for resource consent for the buoys, which will gather data on ecological processes in the lakes and could provide early warning of cyanobacterial blooms.
Costing about $70,000 each, the autonomous, solar-powered buoys will use an electric winch to raise and lower sensors that take readings throughout the water column from the surface to the lake bed.
They have been foreshadowed since July 2019, when the regional council installed one in Lake Hayes.
Spokesman Ryan Tippett said the timeframe for installing them would depend on the consenting process, but it expected to have them in the lakes "in the next few months".
The application says the buoys will provide data, in near real-time, that includes the level of dissolved oxygen, turbidity — or cloudiness — algae distribution, water temperature and depth.
The sampling will contribute to baseline monitoring, against which future changes in the lakes because of climate change or land development in the lakes’ catchments would be assessed.
"The research nature of the proposal will contribute positively to the health of Lakes Wanaka and Wakatipu by supporting long-term health strategies to be devised and implemented."
The Lake Wanaka buoy will be installed west of Beacon Point, while the Lake Wakatipu buoy will be located south of Kelvin Peninsula.
Coloured bright yellow and equipped with solar-powered safety lights, the buoys will be anchored to the lake bed with three moorings attached to 100kg concrete blocks.
