Message from the UUWSN 2009 Workshop Chairs

Underwater sensor networks (UWSNs) is a new area for ubiquitous sensor networks that presents challenges to be overcome such as long propagation delays resulting from the low speed of sound propagation, severely limited range-dependent bandwidth, attenuation, and time-varying multipath propagation. These distinct features of UWSNs give birth to new challenges at every level of the network protocol suite. UWSNs have a lot of potential application areas such as ocean monitoring and disaster prevention. Although more than two-thirds of the surface of the earth is covered with water, including oceans, rivers, and lakes, the oceans remain one of the last frontiers and are sure to be a treasure trove of resources. Oceans serve as the main arteries of transportation between continents, food suppliers, and natural resource retrieval such as oil and natural gas. Recently, UWSN researchers have been trying to apply the sensor network concept to underwater environments to utilize them in the field for practical uses such as resource inquiry, pollution supervision, and catastrophe prevention. This workshop provides an opportunity for industry and academic professionals to discuss the latest issues and progress in the area of UWSNs. The workshop will publish high-quality papers that are closely related to the various theories and practical applications in UWSNs. Furthermore, we hope that this workshop will provide us with a good chance to share creative ideas regarding UWSN with other researchers and engineers from institutions around the world. The 3rd International Workshop on Ubiquitous UnderWater Sensor Networks 2009 (UUWSN 2009) had 22 papers initially submitted, and each paper was carefully reviewed by the internationally organized UUWSN 2009 Technical Program Committee (TPC) members—three reviewers for each paper. We selected only 4 excellent papers from among them, representing an acceptance rate of about 18%. We congratulate the authors of accepted papers and regret that a lot of high-quality submissions could not be included, due to the limited space. On behalf of the board of UUWSN 2009, we appreciate all of the submissions authors made to the