NESP MaC Project 1.29 - Scoping Study: New Approaches to Marine Monitoring, 2021-2022 (RRRC)

This record provides an overview of the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub small-scale study - "Scoping Study: New Approaches to Marine Monitoring".

Australia’s has the third largest marine estate of any country in the world. Much of our marine and coastal resources are in offshore or sparsely populated areas meaning that our ability to monitor and assess our environmental resources and values is particularly challenging. To maximise our understanding of our marine and coastal environment, we need to take advantage of emerging technologies and approaches. This includes citizen science, community monitoring and Indigenous Rangers. In particular, it is expected that these groups will utilise the same technologies as mainstream science, thus these emerging technologies can bridge the gaps between science and community science to operate in unity. This project provides a series of workshops and engagement processes to best explore how to most effectively deploy technologies and community science programs to achieve maximum benefit and synergy in environmental monitoring.

Planned Outputs
• Final report with analysis and a short summary of recommendations for policy makers of key findings [written]

This record consists of 4 parts: Part A, Part B, Part C and Part D. The metadata record for this project is a summary of the entire project.

Part A: Great Reef Census - a case study to integrate citizen science data into research output for marine habitat management". For specific data outputs from this project, please see child records associated with this metadata.

To maximise our understanding of our marine and coastal environment, we need to take advantage of emerging technologies and approaches. This includes citizen science, community monitoring and Indigenous Rangers. Technology has greatly reduced the gap between mainstream science and community science to the point they may become almost identical in some integrated programs, especially when involving collection of in-field information. The challenge for science is to integrate with the vast opportunities afforded by this congruence.
The Great Reef Census (GRC) is an established citizen science innovation project, designed to pilot new ways of capturing reconnaissance citizen science data. By using citizen scientists to both collect and analyse reef images, as well as a team of professional scientists to ensure program rigour, the project is an innovative approach to assessing Great Barrier Reef health that complements and enhance existing monitoring programs.

The aim of this project is to demonstrate a citizen science approach can effectively fill gaps in knowledge when assessing marine habitats to improve management outcomes. As a case study, it will demonstrate how citizen science data can be integrated into the monitoring programs across Australia’s marine and coastal environments using new digital technology platforms. The project will also complement ongoing GBR-based research and provide critical knowledge gaps through end-user engagement with GBRMPA’s CoTS Control Program and Australia’s reporting on the health of the GBR.

Our study will 1) scrutinise, validate and synthesize expert versus citizen scientist analyses of geo-referenced images collected during the Great Reef Census Year 1 field campaign and using the analysis platform, and 2) explore a re-structured online analysis platform that integrates machine learning and citizen science to extract more output from a growing image library collected during field efforts. The end product will provide a case-study evaluation of the benefits and capability of citizen-science programs as well as assisting decision-making capacity based on real-time broad spatial scale information on the Great Barrier Reef. The output will provide a demonstrated case study of meaningful citizen science application to assess marine habitats which can be applied more broadly to tropical marine habitats.

Planned Outputs
• Synthesis R data package
• Final technical report with analysed data and a short summary of recommendations for policy makers of key findings [written]

Part B: NESP Marine and Coastal Hub scoping study: New approaches to monitoring.

Observations of marine species have rapidly diversified over the last decade with increasing numbers of observations collected either through citizen science programs or opportunistically by citizens and then submitted into public databases. The expectation of citizens contributing those data is that the data is incorporated into formal analyses and utilised either for scientific or management purposes, with outcomes that improve current understanding and conservation of marine species. Further, there is increasing reliance on more informal and publicly driven approaches to the collection of observations given the costs of conducting formal surveys particularly if accessing remote regions, or if repetition of collection (across seasons or years) is needed.

Integrating opportunistic observations with more formally collected observations (e.g. those collected through robust survey designs), however, is not straightforward. Traditional approaches to estimating population abundance, changes in species assemblages, abundances and distributions through time require some understanding of the effort associated with those observations and how that effort is also distributed through time; information that is missing from opportunistic observations, given the nature of those observations. Further, many opportunistically collected datasets do not meet the statistical assumptions of many analytical approaches that might be applied to scientific datasets. As a result, opportunistic observations are underutilised at present and are largely only used qualitatively within research applications.

To take full advantage of this rapidly expanding resource and ensure that efforts associated with the collection of these observations are not wasted, methods that can integrate opportunistically collected data with scientific datasets are needed.

This project represents the first stage in developing integrative methods. It will bring together data holders, quantitative ecologists and statisticians to explore potential approaches that might be applied to facilitate the integration of opportunistic datasets with scientific datasets. In doing so, it will identify what datasets might be best suited to the development of integrative approaches (and what might not) and outline a pathway for developing those methods that could be implemented through a future project

Planned Outputs
• Workshop
• Final technical report with analysed data and a short summary of recommendations for policy makers of key findings [written]

Part C: Defining a pathway for the operational use of emerging technologies on country.

Marine and coastal impacts in northern Australia occur overwhelmingly on Indigenous managed land. However, the collection, analysis and use of data to support adaptive management of the threats to these important ecosystems is dominated by external organisations. Existing monitoring solutions rely on trust in the training and expertise of the people collecting the data. The appropriate use of technology and associated training for Indigenous practitioners, coupled with software and hardware development, offers an alternative for Indigenous organisations and funders to deliver environmental, social and cultural impacts in northern Australia.

NAILSMA and its partners have been engaged in activities that seek to develop ethical and inclusive technology solutions that enable Indigenous organisations new opportunities to maximize the participation and leadership in activities that support the management of threats to ecosystems across northern Australia.

Planned Outputs
• Final technical report with analysed data and a short summary of recommendations for policy makers of key findings [written]

Part D: Barriers to using UAVs in conservation and environmental management.

Environmental managers are embracing technology to assist with monitoring and evaluating coastal wetlands. Drones are being used routinely for fauna tracking and water sample collection; however, barriers in broader application still remain for adoption in environmental management. This research will survey conservation professionals about the barriers preventing drone adoption.

Tools available for conservation and environmental research are becoming more advanced and accessible to scientists, community and managers (Isosevic et al., 2021). The ability to mobilise science and technology has become increasingly more important for governments that are faced with balancing development and protection of the environment (Cash et al., 2003, Waltham and Sheaves, 2015). With the proliferation of UAV usage in research (Shahbazi et al., 2014, Hardin et al., 2019, Tmušić et al., 2020) and innovative ways in which they can be used to collect data, it is important to investigate whether these have a place in the conservation toolbox for conservation management. Managers need data on ecosystems to manage and protect them (Dale et al., 2019, Di Stefano, 2004), therefore the potential advantages of UAVs means that data collection using these tools could be more representative and cost-effective (Joyce et al., 2019). However, current management structures do not always leverage data or innovations effectively (Cash et al., 2003).

Planned Outputs
• manuscript publication
• summary information sheet

Tags: National Environmental Science Program Marine and Coastal (NESP MaC) hub, marine
Organization: Australian Ocean Data Network