[Coral-List] drone used to photograph reefs

Alessio Rovere alessiorovere at hotmail.com
Tue Jul 2 16:00:31 UTC 2019 

Thanks for the share, very interesting!

My 2 cents hereafter.

With a much cheaper equipment and the right weather conditions, one can already do a pretty good job in shallow water:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00338-016-1522-0

And with some further analysis the drone data can be used to train the analysis of larger datasets and map broader areas:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01431161.2018.1500072

This said, the research of that group might bring us up to the next step. The fact that it is expensive now does not mean that it will be accessible in, say, 10 years....


Sent from my iPad

On Jul 2, 2019, at 4:45 PM, Jean Jaubert via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov<mailto:coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>> wrote:

Hi Tom,

My team used a high resolution multipsectral imager (CASI) to map the damadge caused by the 1997-1998 El Nino to reefs in French Polynesia: Mumby P., Chisholm J. R. M., Clark C. D., Heydley J. D., Jaubert J. 2001. A bird's-eye view of the health of coral reefs. Nature: 36.

Cheers,

Jean

------------ Beginning of the forwarded e-mails ------------
Hi everyone,

For some reason this exchange triggered a flashback for me, way back to 1992 to an article Mike Risk wrote for REEF ENCOUNTER (Reef Encounter; Number 12, December 1992; pp. 7-9) entitled: "Musings on Monitoring". The views expressed then are still relevant today.

Tom


Quoting "Risk, Michael via Coral-List" <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov<mailto:coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>>:

  ...and 50 years ago Terry Scoffin was flying camera-carrying kites over
  reefs, 40 years ago we had CASSI multispectral imagery...there are
  loads of techniques out there. We need to give up our fascination with
  endless ways to describe the vanishing (how many different "reef
  survey" schemes are out there?) and concentrate on stopping the
  vanishing. This might just mean less focus on individual careers and
  more on solutions. (If I sound cynical-I earned it.)

  On Jun 28, 2019, at 5:20 PM, Douglas Fenner via Coral-List
  <[1]coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov<mailto:coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>> wrote:

  So fantastic whiz-bang technology!  Great!!  We'd all like to be able
  to
  finally see what the reef looks like, each bump, hole, and coral
  colony, on
  our computer screens in the office or lab.  Never mind that it is only
  a
  tiny patch of the world's reefs.  Article didn't say how much 6 mo of
  supercomputer time to crunch the data will cost.  Surely vastly more
  than
  the $90,000 for the camera and $15,000 for the drone.  How practical
  will
  that be for mapping the world's reefs?  What major coral reef problem
  will
  be solved by this?  Will it solve some major mystery about reefs?  Will
  it
  save any reefs or corals?  I didn't see an answer to that in the
  article.
  A person was quoted in this article as saying it is faster than having
  someone go underwater and take a lot of pictures and stitch them
  together.
  But clearly not faster if you include computer time.  Instead of 6 mo
  of
  supercomputer, you can do the computer processing on your own computer
  in a
  few hours with software that is dirt cheap compared to a supercomputer
  for
  6 mo.  For the price of supercomputer for 6 mo, you could provide
  funding
  for reef management for a whole country for a year or more, I would
  guess.
  Or voluntary birth control for a whole small country for a year or so
  (I'm
  totally with you on that, Alina!).
     I'm playing "devil's advocate" here.
      Cheers,  Doug
  On Sat, Jun 29, 2019 at 7:04 AM Nicole Crane <[2]nicrane at cabrillo.edu<mailto:nicrane at cabrillo.edu>>
  wrote:

    Just saw a presentation on this while in Guam. Super!
    Nicole
    On Fri, Jun 28, 2019 at 10:25 AM Douglas Fenner via Coral-List <
    [3]coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov<mailto:coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>> wrote:

    Drone takes to the skies to image offshore reefs
    [4]https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01988-9?WT.ec_id=NATUR
    E-20190627&utm_source=nature_etoc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2019
    0627&sap-outbound-id=F6879643729B698E3E09146A03F27DA843F58E1B&mkt-ke
    y=005056B0331B1ED782EEA4D8C7ECAFA3
    open access
    (Note the cost and that it may take 6 mo of supercomputer time to
    analyze
    the data from 5 sq m.  Also doesn't say how deep it can image or how
    image
    degrades with depth.)
    Cheers,  Doug
    --
    Douglas Fenner
    Ocean Associates, Inc. Contractor
    NOAA Fisheries Service
    Pacific Islands Regional Office
    Honolulu
    and:
    Consultant
    PO Box 7390
    Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA
    A call to climate action  (Science editorial)
    https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6443/807?utm_campaign=toc
    _sci-mag_2019-05-30&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=2840296
    New book "The Uninhabitable Earth"  First sentence: "It is much,
    much
    worse
    than you think."
    Read first (short) chapter open access:
    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/read-a-chapter-from-the-uninhabita
    ble-earth-a-dire-warning-on-climate-change
    Want a Green New Deal?  Here's a better one.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/want-a-green-new-deal-heres-
    a-better-one/2019/02/24/2d7e491c-36d2-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.h
    tml?utm_term=.a3fc8337cbf8
    _______________________________________________
    Coral-List mailing list
    Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov<mailto:Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
    https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list

    --
    Nicole L. Crane
    Faculty, Cabrillo College
    Natural and Applied Sciences
    [5]www.cabrillo.edu/~ncrane<http://www.cabrillo.edu/~ncrane>
    Senior Conservation Scientist, Project co-lead
    One People One Reef
    onepeopleonereef.ucsc.edu<http://onepeopleonereef.ucsc.edu>

  --
  Douglas Fenner
  Ocean Associates, Inc. Contractor
  NOAA Fisheries Service
  Pacific Islands Regional Office
  Honolulu
  and:
  Consultant
  PO Box 7390
  Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA
  A call to climate action  (Science editorial)
  [6]https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6443/807?utm_campaign=toc
  _sci-mag_2019-05-30&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=2840296
  New book "The Uninhabitable Earth"  First sentence: "It is much, much
  worse
  than you think."
  Read first (short) chapter open access:
  [7]https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/read-a-chapter-from-the-uninhabita
  ble-earth-a-dire-warning-on-climate-change
  Want a Green New Deal?  Here's a better one.
  [8]https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/want-a-green-new-deal-heres-
  a-better-one/2019/02/24/2d7e491c-36d2-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.html
  ?utm_term=.a3fc8337cbf8
  _______________________________________________
  Coral-List mailing list
  [9]Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov<mailto:Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
  [10]https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list

References

  1. mailto:coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
  2. mailto:nicrane at cabrillo.edu
  3. mailto:coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
  4. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01988-9?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20190627&utm_source=nature_etoc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20190627&sap-outbound-id=F6879643729B698E3E09146A03F27DA843F58E1B&mkt-key=005056B0331B1ED782EEA4D8C7ECAFA3
  5. http://www.cabrillo.edu/~ncrane
  6. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6443/807?utm_campaign=toc_sci-mag_2019-05-30&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=2840296
  7. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/read-a-chapter-from-the-uninhabitable-earth-a-dire-warning-on-climate-change
  8. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/want-a-green-new-deal-heres-a-better-one/2019/02/24/2d7e491c-36d2-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.html?utm_term=.a3fc8337cbf8
  9. mailto:Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
 10. https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
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