The Potential of Satellite Imagery for Surveying Whales.
TLDR
In this paper, the authors discuss the future directions in which VHR satellite imagery might be used to address urgent questions in whale conservation and highlight the current challenges to automated detection and to extending the use of this technology to all oceans and various whale species.Abstract:
The emergence of very high-resolution (VHR) satellite imagery (less than 1 m spatial resolution) is creating new opportunities within the fields of ecology and conservation biology. The advancement of sub-meter resolution imagery has provided greater confidence in the detection and identification of features on the ground, broadening the realm of possible research questions. To date, VHR imagery studies have largely focused on terrestrial environments; however, there has been incremental progress in the last two decades for using this technology to detect cetaceans. With advances in computational power and sensor resolution, the feasibility of broad-scale VHR ocean surveys using VHR satellite imagery with automated detection and classification processes has increased. Initial attempts at automated surveys are showing promising results, but further development is necessary to ensure reliability. Here we discuss the future directions in which VHR satellite imagery might be used to address urgent questions in whale conservation. We highlight the current challenges to automated detection and to extending the use of this technology to all oceans and various whale species. To achieve basin-scale marine surveys, currently not feasible with any traditional surveying methods (including boat-based and aerial surveys), future research requires a collaborative effort between biology, computation science, and engineering to overcome the present challenges to this platform’s use.read more
Citations
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Mapping Arctic cetaceans from space: A case study for beluga and narwhal.
Bertrand Charry,Emily J. Tissier,John Iacozza,Marianne Marcoux,Cortney A. Watt,Cortney A. Watt +5 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used very high-resolution (VHR) satellite imagery to detect and classify two emblematic Arctic cetaceans, the narwhal (Monodon monoceros) and the beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas).
Journal ArticleDOI
Cetacean Strandings From Space: Challenges and Opportunities of Very High Resolution Satellites for the Remote Monitoring of Cetacean Mass Strandings
Penny Clarke,Hannah C. Cubaynes,Karen A. Stockin,Carlos Olavarría,Asha de Vos,Peter T. Fretwell,Jennifer A. Jackson +6 more
TL;DR: Very High Resolution (VHR) satellite imagery offers the prospect of upscaling monitoring of mass strandings in minimally populated/unpopulated and inaccessible areas, over broad spatial and temporal scales, supporting and informing intervention on the ground, and can be used to retrospectively analyse historical stranding events.
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Ecosystem service flows: A systematic literature review of marine systems
TL;DR: In this paper , a systematic literature review aims to capture the state of the art of ES flow studies to improve the knowledge base on marine ES flows while highlighting knowledge gaps and discussing future research pathways.
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Remote sensing techniques for automated marine mammals detection: a review of methods and current challenges
TL;DR: In this article , the authors reviewed the literature for automated methods applied to detect marine mammals in satellite and UAS imagery and identified thermal infrared UAS images as a future research avenue for marine mammal detection and also recommend the further exploration of object-based image analysis.
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Whales from space dataset, an annotated satellite image dataset of whales for training machine learning models
TL;DR: In this article , the authors present a dataset of 633 annotated whale objects, created by surveying 6,300 km2 of satellite imagery captured by various very high-resolution satellites (i.e. WorldView-3, WorldView2, GeoEye-1 and Quickbird-2) in various regions across the globe (e.g. Argentina, New Zealand, South Africa, United States, Mexico).
References
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