Brief justification
In order to develop effective measures for the protection and conservation of wildlife in the Arctic and Antarctica, regular monitoring of the condition and number of animals and their habitat is necessary. At the top of the food pyramid are marine mammals – indicators of changes in the entire ecosystem of the polar regions. Aerial photography has long been used to estimate their numbers. Until now, little is known about the number of marine animals. Effective monitoring in the harsh conditions of the polar regions requires new methods and technical means of collecting materials and data, as well as modern methods of their processing.
Goal
Monitoring of the condition and multi-species aerial survey of animals in polar regions.
Brief description of the project
To account for marine mammals, aerial photography is carried out from several unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) based on an icebreaker. UAVs are equipped with cameras in various areas of the optical spectrum, including thermal imagers and ultraviolet cameras, as well as navigation systems, altimeters and other sensors. The icebreaker provides forward movement in the latitudinal direction, and the drones are shooting tacks mainly in the direction perpendicular to the movement of the icebreaker.
After preliminary onboard processing and compression, the collected materials are promptly transferred to the processing center on the icebreaker for further flight planning and further to the coastal center for thematic data processing and analysis. To estimate the number of animals, sample data is extrapolated and the number of animals is estimated.
Preparation
The implementation of the entire project requires thorough scientific and technical training in biological, environmental, geographical and other areas, as well as serious mathematical and organizational and technical support of the work. An integrated approach dictates combining the efforts of professionals of different profiles – from biologists to technical and IT specialists.
Among the priority areas are the following:
· “census” of animal species living in polar regions and characteristics of their habitat;
· development and improvement of methods and techniques of aerial photography and methods of collecting materials;
· improvement and automation of methods of processing materials and accounting of animals;
· improvement of extrapolation methods and algorithms for estimating the number of marine animals;
· improving the interpretation of the results of the aerial survey of animals in the polar regions.
By Nikolay Kuznetsov, n-kuz@yandex.ru
