I do sonar for a living, and given the very simple requirement you have I would skin this cat as follows:
Use a simple frequency modulation scheme, possibly involving a little micro, but you could do it in discreet parts...
The underwater gear has a suitable piezo ceramic transducer (Morgan make some off the shelf stuff that would probably do the job), which you feed with a few hundred volts at a frequency depending on the temperature or pressure, as read by your sensor.
At the top you have a transducer in the water, a low noise preamp and a pll which locks to the tone in the water and gives a voltage depending on the frequency receved.
You can increase range and reduce power consumption by making the thing transmit short bursts of tone periodically rather then running it CW, and you can do things like extend the bandwidth by placing a matching network between the power amplifier and the ceramic and an acoustic matching layer between the transducer and the water.
I would note that these units are a commercial off the shelf component from any number of people who make such things for survey and science applications, and would also note that sonar comms once the thing sinks to below a thermocline becomes increasingly problematic unless you lower the rx hydrophone to also be below the thermocline.
I am not sure I see a masters poject here.
Regards, Dan.