Seagrass restoration monitoring and shallow-water benthic habitat mapping through a photogrammetry-based protocol

Ventura, Daniele; Mancini, Gianluca; Pace, Daniela Silvia; Lasinio, Giovanna Jona; Belluscio, Andrea; Ardizzone, Giandomenico

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.114262

Cited by 32 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…UAVs equipped with Inertial Measurement Units (IMU), GPS and RGB cameras can deliver georeferenced imagery that can be processed by a plethora of Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry software, opening new possibilities for the development of effective algorithms capable of producing ultra-high spatial resolution orthophoto mosaic and digital elevation models (DEMs). In fact, UAVs and SfM processing have been successfully applied for natural resource assessment and environmental monitoring of the coastal areas (Burns et al, 2015;Nikolakopoulos et al, 2017;Ventura et al, 2018;Burns et al, 2019;Taddia et al, 2019;Kabiri, 2020;Ventura et al, 2022). These products, other than playing a key role in assessing 3D habitat complexity and health conditions of specific biotopes such as biogenic reefs in tropical (Raoult et al, 2017;Burns et al, 2019;Fallati et al, 2020;Nieuwenhuis et al, 2022) and temperate (Zapata-Ramıŕez et al, 2013;Marre et al, 2019;Prado et al, 2020;Ventura et al, 2020) environnements, can also provide valuable information for fine-scale assessment and monitoring of seagrass and macroalgal beds limits, level of fragmentation, and restoration activities (Marre et al, 2020;Rende et al, 2020;Ventura et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coastal benthic habitat mapping and monitoring by integrating aerial and water surface low-cost drones

et al. 2023

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Accurate data on community structure is a priority issue in studying coastal habitats facing human pressures. The recent development of remote sensing tools has offered a ground-breaking way to collect ecological information at a very fine scale, especially using low-cost aerial photogrammetry. Although coastal mapping is carried out using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs or drones), they can provide limited information regarding underwater benthic habitats. To achieve a precise characterisation of underwater habitat types and species assemblages, new imagery acquisition instruments become necessary to support accurate mapping programmes. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate an integrated approach based on Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetric acquisition using low-cost Unmanned Aerial (UAV) and Surface (USV) Vehicles to finely map shallow benthic communities, which determine the high complexity of coastal environments. The photogrammetric outputs, including both UAV-based high (sub-meter) and USV-based ultra-high (sub-centimetre) raster products such as orthophoto mosaics and Digital Surface Models (DSMs), were classified using Object-Based Image Analysis (OBIA) approach. The application of a supervised learning method based on Support Vector Machines (SVM) classification resulted in good overall classification accuracies > 70%, proving to be a practical and feasible tool for analysing both aerial and underwater ultra-high spatial resolution imagery. The detected seabed cover classes included above and below-water key coastal features of ecological interest such as seagrass beds, “banquettes” deposits and hard bottoms. Using USV-based imagery can considerably improve the identification of specific organisms with a critical role in benthic communities, such as photophilous macroalgal beds. We conclude that the integrated use of low-cost unmanned aerial and surface vehicles and GIS processing is an effective strategy for allowing fully remote detailed data on shallow water benthic communities.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coastal benthic habitat mapping and monitoring by integrating aerial and water surface low-cost drones

et al. 2023

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“…These studies point to the diversity of sensors, methodologies, and applications. As recently stated by Ventura et al (2022) , with reference to an application of underwater monitoring, “no standardized methods currently exist to provide 3-dimensional high spatial resolution and accuracy cartographic products” ( Balletti et al, 2015 ). Moreover, the potentials for exploring the strengths and usefulness of UAS data acquired through low-budget equipment are considered high ( Papakonstantinou et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potentials of Low-Budget Microdrones: Processing 3D Point Clouds and Images for Representing Post-Industrial Landmarks in Immersive Virtual Environments

2022

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Post-industrial areas in Europe, such as the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan region in Germany, include cultural heritage sites fostering local and regional identities with the industrial past. Today, these landmarks are popular places of interest for visitors. In addition to portable camera devices, low-budget ultra-lightweight unmanned aerial vehicles, such as micro quadcopter drones, are on their way to being established as mass photography equipment. This low-cost hardware is not only useful for recreational usage but also supports individualized remote sensing with optical images and facilitates the acquisition of 3D point clouds of the targeted object(s). Both data sets are valuable and accurate geospatial data resources for further processing of textured 3D models. To experience these 3D models in a timely way, these 3D visualizations can directly be imported into game engines. They can be extended with modern interaction techniques and additional (semantic) information. The visualization of the data can be explored in immersive virtual environments, which allows, for instance, urban planners to use low-cost microdrones to 3D map the human impact on the environment and preserve this status in a 3D model that can be analyzed and explored in following steps. A case example of the old wage hall of the Zeche “Bonifacius” (Essen, Germany) with its simple building structure showed that it is possible to generate a detailed and accurate 3D model based on the microdrone data. The point cloud which the 3D model of the old wage hall was based on represented partly better data accuracy than the point clouds derived from airborne laser scanning and offered by public agencies as open data. On average, the distance between the point clouds was 0.7 m, while the average distance between the airborne laser scanning point cloud and the 3D model was −0.02 m. Matching high-quality textures of the building facades brings in a new aspect of 3D data quality which can be adopted when creating immersive virtual environments using the Unity engine. The example of the wage hall makes it clear that the use of low-cost drones and the subsequent data processing can result in valuable sources of point clouds and textured 3D models.

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“…3 So far, some efforts have been made to restore degraded and threatened marine habitats (e.g., Boström-Einarsson et al, 2020;Cebrian et al, 2021;Montseny et al, 2021). In the Mediterranean Sea, several studies focused on the restoration of coralligenous formations (Fava et al, 2010;Forcioli et al, 2011;Montero-Serra et al, 2017;Topçu et al, 2018;Montseny et al, 2019;Pagès Escolà et al, 2020;Casoli et al, 2021), seagrass meadows (Pirrotta et al, 2015;Alagna et al, 2019;Da Ros et al, 2021;Mancini et al, 2021;Piazzi et al, 2021;Ventura et al, 2021), macroalgal forests (De La Fuente et al, 2019;Tamburello et al, 2019), and other vulnerable habitat-forming species (Baldacconi et al, 2010;Musco et al, 2017). Despite their ecological role and fragility, sabellarid reef habitats have been neglected in restoration studies so far.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Feasibility of the Sabellarid Reef Habitat Restoration

et al. 2022

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Polychaetes of the genus Sabellaria (Annelida, Sabellariidae) are gregarious bioconstructors that build reefs by assembling rigid tubes with sand grains in shallow waters. Sabellarid bioconstructions provide important ecosystem services such as sediment stabilization, water filtration and the mitigation of coastal erosion as well as nursery areas, shelter and feeding grounds for several marine species. Moreover, sabellarid reefs are exposed to both natural and anthropogenic disturbance and are therefore listed by international directives among the marine habitats deserving protection. We conducted a pilot study to assess the feasibility of habitat restoration with the sabellarid reef through a novel transplantation method. Fragments of S. spinulosa reef were collected at 1 m depth, fixed using epoxy putty into terracotta vases and then attached on the landward side of the two breakwaters in a coastal marine area enclosed in a Site of National Interest (SNI) of the central-western Adriatic (Mediterranean Sea). Overall, 14 of the 24 transplanted fragments (54.2%) survived during the study period (17 months). The total area of the transplanted reef fragments reduced during the early phase, appearing stable toward the end of the experiment. The transplantation method resulted effective given the survival rate observed, however, we did not observe the expected increase in the reef surface. Small-scale variation in environmental conditions such as organic load, sediment granulometry and hydrodynamics might have affected the growth capacity of the transplanted reef fragments. Further studies considering the microscale environmental requirements of this species are needed to better understand the feasibility of sabellarid reef restoration and its large-scale implementation.

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Seagrass restoration monitoring and shallow-water benthic habitat mapping through a photogrammetry-based protocol

Cited by 32 publications

References 55 publications

Coastal benthic habitat mapping and monitoring by integrating aerial and water surface low-cost drones

Coastal benthic habitat mapping and monitoring by integrating aerial and water surface low-cost drones

Potentials of Low-Budget Microdrones: Processing 3D Point Clouds and Images for Representing Post-Industrial Landmarks in Immersive Virtual Environments

Feasibility of the Sabellarid Reef Habitat Restoration

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