UN Ocean Decade satellite event

The demand for more information about the ocean environment – and in particular the deep sea – is at an all-time high. Within iAtlantic, scientists and technicians are developing, trialling and refining a number of new technology platforms that enable the acquisition of high-quality seafloor imagery.

These instruments are capable of collecting many hundreds of thousands of high-quality seafloor images in one expedition, which are essential in surveying unexplored areas of the seafloor, assessing ecosystem health, and for monitoring the impacts of stressors such as climate change, pollution and fishing activity. However, the challenge of seafloor and habitat surveying does not stop at image collection: these images need to be processed and analysed – a task that demands an enormous amount of specialist expertise and time. The development of machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence can assist with this task, by using automated image recognition to identify seafloor habitats and animal species, as well as creating 3D reconstructions of seafloor features such as hydrothermal vent chimneys to examine how they change over time. Not only can machine learning techniques greatly speed up the image processing element of ecosystem mapping, the latest developments aim to enable local-scale observations to be combined with other seafloor information such as bathymetry and oceanographic observations to predict and thus map habitat and species distribution at much bigger scales. This information is essential for understanding basin-scale impacts of environmental change without the vast expense and time associated with traditional research vessel-based surveys.

This satellite event will showcase a number of new marine imaging technologies developed and trialled in the iAtlantic project, demonstrating how these instruments contribute to our knowledge and understanding of the marine environment, and how new low-cost, easy-to-deploy instruments can enable much wider access to marine environmental information and help facilitate better marine monitoring and management, especially in developing countries without access to research vessel facilities. We will also demonstrate novel image processing techniques that enable us to visualise marine ecosystems in new ways, and how artificial intelligence and machine learning is fast becoming an important new tool in understanding the impacts of global change on marine ecosystems.

This event is open to all, particularly those with an interest in marine environmental surveying and monitoring, ecosystem assessment, and the innovative use of artificial intelligence and modelling techniques in scaling up local observations to generate a bigger-picture view of the distribution of ecosystems and habitats across ocean basins. The technology exhibited in this session is relevant for all sea basins and at a range of water depths. It is our hope that showcasing these instruments and techniques will expand access to such technology, broaden the scientific discourse and collaboration on improving such techniques, and also stimulate ideas and discussion on potential new applications and uses. 

> Find out more about the technology we will showcase in this session