Testing the use of unmanned aircraft systems for intertidal surveys - proof of concept
Project Description
Intertidal monitoring is essential to establish benchmarks and to monitor important resources that are particularly important to the people living in Alaska's coastal environments. One of the shortfalls of the traditional sampling typically conducted through on-the-ground surveys is the small area that can be feasibly monitored with limited people-power and time due to low tide series. What is needed is a cost-effective mechanism that can be used to survey larger areas during the short low tide time period. We are currently providing a proof of concept that unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are a cost-effective tool that can be used to 1) expand the typically small-scale (on the order of meters) monitoring with larger-scale (on the order of kilometers), high resolution imagery taken from low-flying UAS, and 2) monitor new areas where benchmark data are currently lacking. This projects links to and expands the Gulf Watch Alaska intertidal monitoring that is currently being conducted in Kachemak Bay.
Project Funding
Coastal Marine Institute
Start Date: 2014-00-00
End Date: 2016-00-00
Konar B, K Iken, M Rogers and S Vanderwaal. (2015). "Testing the use of unmanned aircraft
systems for intertidal surveys: proof of concept". Oral Tidbit Presentation at the
Kachemak Bay Science Conference. March 2015.
Konar B, K Iken, M Rogers and S Vanderwaal. (2015). "Testing the use of unmanned aircraft
systems for intertidal surveys: proof of concept". Poster at the Alaska Marine Science
Symposium. January 2015.
Iken K, Konar B, M Rogers and S Vanderwaal. (2015). "Testing the use of unmanned aircraft
systems for intertidal surveys: proof of concept". Oral Presentation at the Coastal
Marine Institute Annual Reivew. January 2015.
Research Team
Brenda Konar
Principal Investigator
Associate Dean of Research and Administration; Director of Institute of Marine Science; Director of Coastal Marine Institute; Professor
Specialties:
- phycology
- research scuba diving
- biodiversity
- monitoring programs
- nearshore ecology
- ecosystem change
- benthic ecology
- kelp forest ecology
Katrin Iken
Co-Principal Investigator
Professor
Specialties:
- Trophic interactions and food web analysis
- Benthic diversity and communities
- Stable isotope analysis
- Phycology and invertebrate ecology
- Shallow water ecology and deep-sea biology
- Polar marine biology