[Coral-List] drone used to photograph reefs

[David Blakeway]

Doug,
Yes it is expensive, but NASA's ultimate aim is to map other planets. In
that context it's better value.
It may not solve any immediate reef problem but it has a lot of potential
to reveal unknown patterns/problems.
So personally, if I were a US citizen, I think I'd be happy for my tax
dollars to support projects like this.
I do appreciate your points about alternative spending, and Alessio's about
cost-effective options.
Regards,
David Blakeway
Fathom 5 Marine Research

On Wed, Jul 3, 2019 at 10:48 PM Alessio Rovere via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:

> 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
>
>