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17 December 2020
By Emma Sullivan, Plymouth Marine Laboratory 

In a year where opportunities to travel and do fieldwork have been more limited, Earth Observation (EO) data is an increasingly important source of information for researchers and managers.

EO data can be a cost-effective way of monitoring ocean and coastal ecosystems and resource use. Project 7 (EO Approaches) has been making progress on developing methods for monitoring aquaculture sites from space and creating habitat maps to support the valuation of ecosystem services and the effective management of marine resources.

Monitoring aquaculture structures
A new methodology has been developed for detecting aquaculture structures using Sentinel-1, the first of the Copernicus Programme satellite constellations conducted by the European Space Agency (ESA), Synthetic Aperture Radar. This method has been used to map aquaculture sites in Palawan (Philippines) and a paper is currently being prepared for submission to a scientific journal to share the method with others.

Collected GPS points from fieldwork and digitised resource maps around Biton Island, Philippines. Shown over Copernicus Sentinel 2 Image from May 2020Habitat mapping
Project 7 has been using EO data from ESA/Copernicus' Sentinel-2 to produce habitat maps for all four of the case study areas. These maps feed into several other projects within Blue Communities, such as Project 3 (Ecosystem impacts) and Project 8 (Probabilistic decisions).

Despite being produced using ‘remote’ sensing data collected by satellites, Project 7 has still been affected by the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ground truth data is important for habitat mapping: it is used to train the model and check the accuracy of the maps produced. Despite the disruption, project partners have provided existing maps, essential feedback and field data for the four study sites. This information is being used to improve the habitat maps, which will provide a baseline for monitoring and ecosystem service valuation for local environmental managers and other stakeholders.

Training
EO data can provide a huge amount of information about a study area, which can be useful in all stages of research, from study planning and conducting fieldwork to undertaking analysis and providing a regional context for in situ data. However, the volume of data and the computing resources needed can be a barrier to using this information in research and monitoring.

2020-12-06_SentA Sentinel 2 image from Sentinel Hub EO browser showing the Tun Mustapha study area, Malaysia, acquired Dec 2020This challenge is being met by web-based platforms for searching, visualising and cloud-based processing of EO data, such as Google Earth Engine. In November, the Project 7 team ran an introductory webinar on how to use two tools, Google Earth Engine Timelapse and Sentinel Hub EO browser, to search and examine satellite imagery using just your web browser. Over 20 attendees from all case study countries, as well as interested participants from Madagascar, were shown how to search imagery archives, visualise satellite data and create images and time-lapse videos. These tools make EO data more accessible for a range of users to support the management of the marine environment, without the need for specialist software.

If you would like to learn more about remote sensing, we occasionally share external training opportunities which may be of interest. If you would like to be informed of such opportunities then please contact Emma Sullivan at emsu@pml.ac.uk

To return to Blue Communities News December 2020, please click here.
  • Sentinel 2 images from Sentinel Hub EO browser showing the Cu Lao Cham area before (top) and after (bottom) Typhoon Molave, which made landfall south of Da Nang on the 28th October 2020 and caused widespread destruction, including flooding and landslides.
  • Sentinel 2 images from Sentinel Hub EO browser showing the Cu Lao Cham area before (top) and after (bottom) Typhoon Molave, which made landfall south of Da Nang in October 2020 and caused widespread destruction, including flooding and landslides.
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