Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Marine and Coastal Monitoring and Management

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, UAVs have been widely promoted as a means of reducing intensive, expensive ground survey efforts across a variety of ecological domains. Relative affordability and agile deployment may allow them to bridge critical gaps between lower temporal and spatial resolution satellite data and intensive, expensive ground survey. This is particularly true in temperate climates, where cloud cover inhibits satellite effectiveness, and in dynamic zones like coasts. Coastal areas support high levels of biodiversity and provide important ecosystem services, but are highly dynamic environments and vulnerable to ongoing climate change impacts. Temperate coastal zones, particularly intertidal areas, have high spatial and temporal heterogeneity; complex interactions of abiotic and biotic factors influence the distribution of species communities, which may also undergo seasonal change, cyclical succession, and rapid response to stochastic weather events. Unless remote sensing data are collected to order, the probability of obtaining imagery of the intertidal area under optimal tidal, seasonal, and weather conditions is extremely low.

However, some advantages of UAVs are particularly relevant to marine and coastal environments. Extensive areas of coastline are inaccessible for ground survey, making remote sensing the only practical option for surveillance and monitoring. UAVs have the potential to be important operational monitoring tools for scientists and managers in these areas. Revisit frequency can be controlled, and cost-effective platforms are available. Adoption has been aided by a number of factors, including advances in sensors and positioning, an increased variety of platforms, and cost reductions. While the rise of the drone has been rapid, analytical methods have lagged, and workflows to support effective monitoring are lacking. Substantial work is still needed in order to create accurate techniques for estimating and monitoring marine and coastal habitat extents, composition, and condition, if they are to compete with methods applied in analyzing terrestrial systems.

We invite your submissions to this Special Issue on the following topics:

• Measuring and mapping marine and coastal habitat structures, and associated biodiversity using UAVs;
• Measuring and mapping coastal and marine habitat condition using UAVs;
• Detecting change in coastal and marine habitat extent, structure, and condition using UAVs;
• Incorporating UAVs into a hierarchy of remote sensing platforms to deliver more cost-effective multi-level monitoring systems;
• Management, research, and industry examples using UAVs for marine and coastal mapping and monitoring.

Habitats may include, but are not limited to, saltmarsh, seagrass, and biogenic or rocky reefs. Work incorporating the monitoring of restoration efforts is of particular interest.

Dr. Clare Fitzsimmons
Guest Editor

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• unmanned aerial vehicle
• UAV
• drone
• intertidal
• coastal
• temperate habitats
• monitoring
• change detection
• remote sensing