Remote sensing of salmonid spawning sites in freshwater ecosystems: The potential of low-cost UAV data.

ABSTRACT: Salmonids are especially vulnerable during their embryonic development, but monitoring of their spawning grounds is rare and often relies on manual counting of their nests (redds). This method, however, is prone to sampling errors resulting in over- or underestimations of redd counts. Salmonid spawning habitat in shallow water areas can be distinguished by their visible reflection which makes the use of standard unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) a viable option for their mapping. Here, we aimed to develop a standardised approach to detect salmonid spawning habitat that is easy and low-cost. We used a semi-automated approach by applying supervised classification techniques to UAV derived RGB imagery from two contrasting lakes in Iceland. For both lakes six endmember classes were obtained with

SUBMITTER: Ponsioen L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10464957 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature