Beneath the surface of marine conservation
Oceans are home to 80 percent of all life on Earth, yet they remain mostly unmapped, unobserved, and unexplored. Learn how researchers are using drones to explore and protect our oceans.
Image courtesy of Sebastian Pena Lambarri
Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the Earth’s surface and are home to 80 percent of all life on Earth. They provide food, jobs, and energy resources to human populations, in addition to generating 25 percent of the world’s oxygen and acting as the largest carbon sink on the planet. Despite our reliance on these resources, there is still much we do not know about them: over 80 percent of the ocean is unmapped, unobserved, and unexplored. To be responsible stewards of marine ecosystems, we need to learn more about oceans and the various forms of life they support.
To help address this knowledge gap, the United Nations has set goals to protect and restore marine ecosystems and biodiversity as well as to create a digital representation of the ocean. Drones will play a critical role in advancing these efforts. From monitoring sea plant and animal life to mapping shallow ocean floors and coral reefs, scientists across the globe are using drone technology as a part of their research efforts.
To be responsible stewards of marine ecosystems, we need to learn more about oceans and the various forms of life they support
Why are drones a useful tool for marine research and conservation?
Part of the reason drones are such a powerful tool for research and management is because data collected from an aerial perspective can survey both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
One benefit to using drones to study marine ecosystems is that they capture footage with a greater level of detail than satellite imagery. This kind of high-resolution imagery can detect additional information relevant to the research at hand. For instance, drone images may include visual evidence of indicator species that can inform researchers about the health of an ecosystem, even if the indicator species is not the species or topic the researchers are studying.
Drones also provide a less invasive option for studying marine animals. Conventional research methods involving humans can disturb wildlife, impacting the behavior patterns of the animals that scientists wish to study.
Another perk is that drone footage can provide a record of an ecosystem’s change over time. Documenting impacts is a central part of climate research, as scientists seek to understand the ways our world is changing, and drone imagery creates a permanent visual archive that is more reliable and useful compared to traditional manual surveying methods, such as species counts.
Overall, drones increase efficiency and access for climate scientists, reducing costs and simplifying methods for scientific studies. They can reach difficult-to-access ecosystems and reduce field risk for wildlife biologists. Plus, drone footage can also be used for conservation campaigns or educational purposes, expanding the public’s awareness of marine conservation issues and improving science communications materials.
This list is compiled from a pair of academic literature reviews discussing drone applications for sea turtle and ray research. These papers also discuss some of the challenges specific to using drones for marine conservation, such as the way water impacts image quality. For animal research, accuracy in the ability to detect organisms in shallow waters decreases after about 5 meters of depth. For general ocean mapping, it can be difficult to create an accurate orthomosaic image without identifying features, such as in environments with unvarying sandy bottoms or turbid water, and ripples can at times pose a problem for imaging. Additionally, it is important to plan missions to avoid sunspots and glare, and to ensure that the drone has enough battery life to access the areas of interest, as a crash means a catastrophic loss of data from corrosion or water damage.
“Drones can reach difficult-to-access ecosystems and reduce field risk for wildlife biologists.”
What does it look like to use drones for marine conservation?
There are generally three phases to marine research: data collection, data processing, and data analysis.
During the first phase, data collection, the goal is to acquire overlapping images using the drone, which can be processed into one mosaicked image. Image resolution is determined by drone altitude, meaning the higher a drone flies (within regulations, of course), the coarser the resolution will be — but the more area will be included within each image. Various flight mission applications, such as DJI Ground Station Pro, Pix4D Capture, or Drone Deploy can be used to plan the drone mission. During this step, researchers also may wish to set up some ground control points, which can help geo-reference images if they plan to collect data over time.
After collecting images, scientists can use software such as Agisoft, Pix4D, VisualSFM, and CloudCompare to process the overlapping images into one mosaicked image. These software platforms use the overlap, or common points, between images to create dense point clouds composed of millions of points representing the landscape and to correct distortion to produce an orthomosaic.
Finally, after producing dense point clouds and creating one combined and corrected orthomosaic image, researchers can use GIS software to classify and measure features in your image, whether they be seagrass meadows or stream sections. Software that can be used for this part includes ArcGIS, QGIS, or SAGA GIS.
drone projects in zanzibar map coastlines to protect octopi and marine ecosystems
For animal research, accuracy in the ability to detect organisms in shallow waters decreases after about 5 meters of depth
Where is marine science using drones taking place?
Just as on land, there are many different types of drone applications being pursued at sea. Here’s a brief list of other interesting marine research projects happening around the world:
Global - Using drones to map ocean plastics
Panama - Sea level monitoring
Solomon Islands - Drone oil spill surveying for shoreline cleanup
United States - Distressed marine animal search and rescue support
Belize - Combating illegal fishing through drone enforcement
Zanzibar - Comprehensive island mapping to monitor coastlines, mangroves, seagrass, and octopi
Australia - Seafloor mapping using drones for nautical charts
India - Conducting sea turtle population counts using drones
Want to learn more?
Check out these resources for marine conservation using drones:
CitizenScienceGIS produced this open-access drone mapping course for seagrass conservation.
Dr. Javier Leon at the University of the Sunshine Coast created this handbook for seagrass mapping, which provides a very direct and clear guide to the drone mapping process using open-source platforms.
Finally, practice for your own mission: Arctic UAVs is a game app that allows you to simulate flying a drone through stormy Alaska weather to collect footage of seals for an Arctic research project.
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