The iAtlantic capacity building workshop to train researchers in the assembly and operation of the Azor drift-cam took place on 5-8 June 2023 at the facilities of Escola do Mar (EMA) in the city of Horta (Faial island, Portugal). A total of 12 iAtlantic researchers hailing from Brazil, South Africa and the United Kingdom took part in the workshop organised by the Azores Deep-Sea Research group. The hands-on course content during the week provided participants with the necessary training and know-how to build a replica of the Azor drift-cam system, as well as the capacity to safely operate this cost-effective system from small local vessels. This will enable them to obtain high-resolution underwater video images of deep-sea habitats.
The workshop was split in four different sections, which covered all the aspects needed to understand how the Azor drift-cam works. The week started with an introduction on the concept, the rationale and the guiding principles that were followed during the construction of the different prototypes that led to the final design of the Azor drift-cam. Next, a series of practical sessions showed participants how to assemble all the parts of the metal structure in order to build a functional replica of the Azor drift-cam. Those sessions also covered troubleshooting issues in order to give the participants the capacity to find and solve small problems that can potentially arise during deployment of the system at sea. The workshop also included a practical session on how to run the software used with the Azor drift-cam (including the ArcGIS program to collect positioning data) and how to setup the depth/temperature sensors and the action cameras. Finally, the workshop included two half-day surveys on board a small local vessel to demonstrate how to deploy the Azor drift-cam in real conditions and how to operate the system to effectively collect video footage of deep-sea benthic habitats.
A total of 4 deployments were performed during the workshop in areas south of Faial and Pico islands. The images collected revealed that habitats of the island slopes found at 200-300 m depth are characterised by mixed substrates with a dominance of sponges species, where several deep-sea sharks and demersal fishes can be spotted.
The key aim of this workshop was to enable transfer of this low-cost technology to the research community in the South Atlantic, where access to large infrastructure such as research vessels, ROVs and other expensive survey equipment can be challenging. The Azor drift-cam enables acquisition of high-quality video footage of ecosystems in waters depth of up to 1000m using off-the-shelf components and simple deployment protocols that do not require overly specialised vessel facilities.
Further information
The associated research article featuring the development of the Azor drift-cam can be accessed at:
Dominguez-Carrió, C., Fontes, J., Morato, T., 2021. A cost-effective video system for a rapid appraisal of deep-sea benthic habitats: The Azor drift-cam. Methods Ecol Evol 12, 1379–1388. DOI: 10.1111/2041-210X.13617.
More information on the Azor drift-cam can be found here.
And check out the short video made about the rationale, design and operating procedures of the Azor drift-cam.
