Coastal and reef policy decisions and management programs require research to address current and emerging issues, to detect trends in key environmental variables and to help evaluate the effectiveness of management strategies. The technology and infrastructure components are now well developed and understood, but the useful application of sensor network data and efficient delivery of real-time information still needs improvement to better incorporate management needs and priorities. This paper aims to contribute to the current understanding of the adoption of wireless technology in research and practice, by identifying the main drivers and barriers to the adaptive deployment of an environmental sensor network along the Great Barrier Reef coast. Specifically, it addresses the extent to which the deployment of sensor networks and the delivery of real-time data can best suit managers’ and decision makers’ needs by providing timely and useful spatial data. Study findings indicate that, although researchers and managers ask significantly different questions requiring real-time spatial data, there is great potential and interest from both science and management for continuous automatic monitoring of environmental parameters. Some of the key research and management needs that the sensor network technology should address include measuring water (marine) quality at biological monitoring sites, water circulation patterns and flood plume water quality, gathering long-term data on turbidity, photosynthetically active radiation and chlorophyll a, and developing uniform standards for the provision of data to networks.