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AMP sensor field of view for a horizontally oriented deployment showing the AMP body to scale for (a) top-view and (b) side-view with the Manta optical cameras to 8 m (nominal range), BlueView sonar to 10 m, Gemini sonar to 80 m, and Simrad echosounder to 80 m.
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Integrated instrumentation packages are an attractive option for environmental and ecological monitoring at marine energy sites, as they can support a range of sensors in a form factor compact enough for the operational constraints posed by energetic waves and currents. Here we present details of the architecture and performance for one such system...
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Context 1
... the exception of the optical cameras, which involved a custom solution for stereo imaging and strobe illumination, commercial instrumentation was integrated with limited modification (e.g., the Simrad WBTmini transceiver required a custom pressure housing). The fields of view for optical and acoustic instruments are shown schematically in Figure 2. The depth rating varies by sensor from a minimum of 20 m for the echosounder transducer to a maximum of 4000 m for the Tritech and Kongsberg multibeam sonars. ...
Context 2
... to observe "rare events" without producing unmanageable volumes of data, it is essential to provide sufficient power for continuous sensor operation and real-time processing [19], whether by cable or in situ energy harvesting. When limited by batteries, as for the AutoAMP (Section 3.2), the type of sensors that can be supported and the maximum allowable duty cycle are relatively low, given power requirements for sensing and real-time processing (Tables 1 and 2). As another example, the initial deployments of the FLOWBEC platform relied on battery power [12], which limited deployments to 14 days, restricted the sensor suite, did not allow real time data processing, and devoted the majority of the platform structure to battery storage. ...
Context 3
... example, a Teledyne ODI NRH connector can only tolerate a linear offset <4 mm and an angular offset <10 • during mating and requires >500 N engagement force. Early AMP developments included successful demonstration of a wet-mate system using an inspection-class ROV (Figure 12), and docking station [42,43], but the complexity, risk, and cost motivated a cable recovery strategy for MSL-1 and MSL-2. For cable recovery, the connectors can be dry-mate, with substantially lower cost, but this requires a customized approach to controlling package orientation during redeployment, maintenance operations put the cable and instrumentation system at risk, and steps must be taken to avoid collision or entanglement with a nearby MEC. ...
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The elaboration of a methodology for accurately assessing the potentialities of blue renewable energy sources is a key challenge among the current energy sustainability strategies all over the world. Consequentially, many researchers are currently working to improve the accuracy of marine renewable assessment methods. Nowadays, remote sensing (RSs)...
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... With growing recognition of the importance of understanding fine (Slingsby et al., 2021) to medium (Couch and Bryden, 2007;Cox et al., 2013) scale habitats (e.g. kolk boil to tidal front), concurrent spatial surveys, along with longer-term upward-facing seabed platform temporal datasets (Polagye et al., 2020;Viehman and Redden, 2018;Williamson et al., 2017) offer an efficient route to resolving uncertainties while remaining practical. ...
... Only the ADCP and EK60 data are analysed here. The integrated platform allows concurrent collection of hydrodynamic and biological (fish school) data at very fine timescales and is one of several multi-instrument platforms recently developed for biophysical measurements within high energy sites (Polagye et al., 2020;Scherelis et al., 2020;Williamson et al., 2021). These outputs are hereafter referred to as 'platform' data. ...
... Expanding the use of platforms is likely to benefit from collaborative efforts on seabed platform design and instrumentation configurations. Other seabed platforms such as the Adaptable Monitoring Package (AMP) (Polagye et al., 2020), and the Fundy Advanced Sensor Technology (FAST) platform (Viehman and Redden, 2018) take a similar approach as FLOWBEC-4D to whole water column, continuous, long-term data collection of biological and physical covariates. The High Current Underwater Platform (HiCUP) (Gillespie et al., 2022) focuses on marine mammal detection and uses only one type of active acoustics: multibeam sonar. ...
... Fish are commonly assessed as individuals or schools (depending on the species) using various active acoustic instruments like single beam or split beam echosounders [62][63][64], multibeam acoustic cameras [32,65,66] and multibeam imaging sonars [26,67], acoustic telemetry [41,42,68], and with underwater optical cameras [25,69]. Other marine animals such as sea turtles and diving sea birds may be assessed in conjunction with marine mammal surveys, or from other dedicated monitoring campaigns [70] using some of the approaches mentioned above. ...
Commercial development of tidal stream energy is hampered by technical and financial challenges, and impeded by uncertainty about potential environmental effects that drive environmental risk assessments and permitting (consenting) processes. The effect of greatest concern for operational tidal stream energy devices is the potential for marine animals to collide with turbine blades, resulting in injury or death. Due to the turbulent and often turbid waters that frequently characterize tidal turbine sites, there is an absence of empirical evidence about collisions with marine animals. This paucity of observations often leads to risk-averse permitting decisions that further restrict the deployment of tidal energy devices that are needed to collect this evidence. This paper relies on the framework of stressors and receptors that is widely used in marine energy studies and outlines a stepwise probabilistic methodology that applies existing knowledge to further elucidate the risk to marine animals from operational tidal turbines. A case study using striped bass from the Bay of Fundy, Canada, accompanies the methodology, to partially demonstrate its application.
... Fish are commonly assessed as individuals or schools (depending on the species) using various active acoustic instruments like single beam or split beam echosounders [62][63][64], multibeam acoustic cameras [32,65,66] and multibeam imaging sonars [26,67], acoustic telemetry [41,42,68], and with underwater optical cameras [25,69]. Other marine animals such as sea turtles and diving sea birds may be assessed in conjunction with marine mammal surveys, or from other dedicated monitoring campaigns [70] using some of the approaches mentioned above. ...
Commercial development of tidal stream energy is hampered by technical and financial challenges, and impeded by uncertainty about potential environmental effects that drive environmental risk assessments and permitting (consenting) processes. The effect of greatest concern for operational tidal stream energy devices is the potential for marine animals to collide with turbine blades, resulting in injury or death. Due to the turbulent and often turbid waters that frequently characterize tidal turbine sites, there is an absence of empirical evidence about collisions with marine animals. This paucity of observations often leads to risk-averse permitting decisions that further restrict the deployment of tidal energy devices that are needed to collect this evidence. This paper relies on the framework of stressors and receptors that is used widely in marine energy studies and outlines a stepwise probabilistic methodology that applies existing knowledge to further elucidate the risk to marine animals from operational tidal turbines. A case study using striped bass from the Bay of Fundy, Canada, accompanies the methodology, to partially demonstrate its application.
... energy from the sun, energy from wind, geothermal energy, energy from the sea, energy from organic material and biofuels (Wilberforce et al., 2019). The conversion of marine energy resources (e.g., waves, currents) to electricity is at an early stage of development and, as a consequence of scientific and regulatory uncertainty (Polagye et al., 2020). Marine energy development efforts require increased support for resource exploration marine energy through survey activities to obtain data and information on how much energy content from sources in the sea. ...
Southern waters of Malang are one of the areas in the south of Java where some of its coastal areas have not been electrified. The purpose of this research is to determine the magnitude of wave energy potential in the waters of South Malang. The theoretical amount of wave energy is obtained through wave data processing (wave period, significant wave height, and wave direction) and the results are in the form of the wave energy value with the highest value in 2021 occurring in August with an average value of 40 kW /m - 50 kW/m while in 2022 the highest value occurs in July with an average value of 40 kW/m to 50 kW/m. The technical potential value of wave energy is calculated by adding the efficiency formula from AquaBuOY so that results with the highest technical wave energy potential value are obtained in 2021 in August with an average value of 40 kW/m - 50 kW/m while in 2022 the highest potential wave energy value occurs in July with an average value of 40 kW/m - 50 kw/m. Potential locations are determined based on theoretical and technical potential results and the suitability of placing AquaBuOY so that a station point that meets these criteria is obtained, namely at the 29, 30, and 34 where station 30 is the station that has the closest criteria to effectively installing buoys with the total theoretical energy is 4838.46 MW and technically it is 4354.61 MW in 2021 while in 2022 the total theoretical energy is 4387.95 MW and technically it is 3977.38 MW.
... Traditionally, ocean and marine ecosystems have been monitored using high-frequency radar, ocean gliders, and animal tagging (Bean et al., 2017;Benoit Beauchamp and Duprey, 2019;Lin and Yang, 2020). These techniques are either invasive, human resource intensive, expensive, or do not scale to meet the climate emergency (Polagye et al., 2020). Much research is underway to replace these traditional monitoring techniques with different forms of electronic monitoring using audio and video devices such as cameras, satellites, and acoustic devices (Lee et al., 2010;Polagye et al., 2020;Hussain et al., 2021;Kandimalla et al., 2022;Rizwan Khokher et al., 2022;. ...
... These techniques are either invasive, human resource intensive, expensive, or do not scale to meet the climate emergency (Polagye et al., 2020). Much research is underway to replace these traditional monitoring techniques with different forms of electronic monitoring using audio and video devices such as cameras, satellites, and acoustic devices (Lee et al., 2010;Polagye et al., 2020;Hussain et al., 2021;Kandimalla et al., 2022;Rizwan Khokher et al., 2022;. As such, several researchers have applied deep learning to specifically classify and detect different species of marine life for various applications (Qin et al., 2016;Salman et al., 2016;Sun et al., 2018). ...
Oceans will play a crucial role in our efforts to combat the growing climate emergency. Researchers have proposed several strategies to harness greener energy through oceans and use oceans as carbon sinks. However, the risks these strategies might pose to the ocean and marine ecosystem are not well understood. It is imperative that we quickly develop a range of tools to monitor ocean processes and marine ecosystems alongside the technology to deploy these solutions on a large scale into the oceans. Large arrays of inexpensive cameras placed deep underwater coupled with machine learning pipelines to automatically detect, classify, count, and estimate fish populations have the potential to continuously monitor marine ecosystems and help study the impacts of these solutions on the ocean. In this paper, we successfully demonstrate the application of YOLOv4 and YOLOv7 deep learning models to classify and detect six species of fish in a dark artificially lit underwater video dataset captured 500 m below the surface, with a mAP of 76.01% and 85.0%, respectively. We show that 2,000 images per species, for each of the six species of fish is sufficient to train a machine-learning species classification model for this low-light environment. This research is a first step toward systems to autonomously monitor fish deep underwater while causing as little disruption as possible. As such, we discuss the advances that will be needed to apply such systems on a large scale and propose several avenues of research toward this goal.
... Animal movement data from the marine environment can be derived from various sources, working on their own or in combination (Polagye et al., 2020). These include active acoustic surveys using echosounders for larger organisms such as fish, cephalopods and cetaceans (Williamson et al., 2017), satellite tag tracking (Esteban et al., 2017), catch data (Maunder & Punt, 2004) and mark-recapture studies (Thorrold et al., 2001). ...
Aquatic biotelemetry increasingly relies on using acoustic transmitters (‘tags’) that enable passive detection of tagged animals using fixed or mobile receivers. Both tracking methods are resource-limited, restricting the spatial area in which movements of highly mobile animals can be measured using proprietary detection systems. Transmissions from tags are recorded by underwater noise monitoring systems designed for other purposes, such as cetacean monitoring devices, which have been widely deployed in the marine environment; however, no tools currently exist to decode these detections, and thus valuable additional information on animal movements may be missed. Here, we describe simple hybrid methods, with potentially wide application, for obtaining information from otherwise unused data sources. The methods were developed using data from moored, acoustic cetacean detectors (C-PODs) and towed passive receiver arrays, often deployed to monitor the vocalisations of cetaceans, but any similarly formatted data source could be used. The method was applied to decode tag detections that were found to have come from two highly mobile fish species, bass ( Dicentrarchus labrax ) and Twaite shad ( Alosa fallax ), that had been tagged in other studies. Decoding results were validated using test tags; range testing data were used to demonstrate the relative efficiency of these receiver methods in detecting tags. This approach broadens the range of equipment from which acoustic tag detections can be decoded. Novel detections derived from the method could add significant value to past and present tracking studies at little additional cost, by providing new insights into the movement of mobile animals at sea.
... In acknowledgement of these needs, a variety of sophisticated technological approaches have been developed in recent years (e.g., McCann and Bell, 2017;Polagye et al., 2020). Optical cameras have proved useful for monitoring very close to MRE devices in favorable conditions (Hammar et al., 2013;Broadhurst et al., 2014;Smith, 2021). ...
Persisting knowledge gaps relating to the ecological context and potential environmental impacts of marine renewable energy (MRE) devices continue to add substantial costs and uncertainty to MRE projects globally. Increasingly sophisticated technological approaches to environmental monitoring can have fundamental non-trivial shortcomings for environmental impact assessment (EIA), whilst substantial practical and financial costs of deployments can prevent their application. For the tidal stream energy (TSE) sector, there is a need for practical and cost-effective methods that can provide site-specific information on predator behavior and associated prey assemblages. Considering existing knowledge of animal communities in tidal channel environments, a proportional approach using shore-based observation and baited fish trap methods was developed. During April 2021, a trial of these methods was conducted in tidal channel environments in Shetland, UK. The practical application of the proposed approach is demonstrated here with results from three tidal channels including Bluemull Sound, the site of active TSE installations (the Shetland Tidal Array). Observation of predator behavior across the study sites are reported for great cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo and European shag Phalacrocorax aristotelis . Seabird diving data calculated from the shore-based observations provided metrics relevant to informing EIA and collision risk modelling including dive duration, dives per minute, and % time underwater. Fish trap deployments targeted the benthic and demersal prey of these predators in the three study sites and across a range of depths and hydrodynamic conditions. A variety of fish and invertebrate species known to be important components of benthic-foraging seabird diet were successfully captured by the traps, providing basic biological information on the prey assemblages observed in each site. The fish species observed in the highest abundance were saithe Pollachius virens and cod Gadus morhua . Benefits, limitations, and applications of this approach are discussed along with various factors relating to the performance of both methods. The shore-based observations rapidly identified relevant patterns in predator foraging activity which informed the targeted deployment of fish traps to provide complementary prey data. This novel combined approach has potential to reduce costs and uncertainty in EIA and for supporting the responsible development of the MRE industry.
... Underwater cameras have been used to some extent, but have limited fields of view, low detection ranges, and can only operate effectively in daylight. Potential alternative tools which have the capacity to detect and track marine mammals include active and passive acoustic systems (Williamson et al., 2015;Malinka et al., 2018;Hastie et al., 2019a;Gillespie et al., 2020;Polagye et al., 2020). ...
Arrays of tidal turbines are being considered for tidally energetic coastal sites which can be important habitat for many species of marine mammal. Understanding risks to marine mammals from collisions with moving turbine blades must be overcome before regulators can issue licenses for many developments. To understand these risks, it is necessary to understand how animals move around operational turbines and to document the rate at which interactions occur. We report on the design, and performance, of a seabed mounted sensor platform for monitoring the fine scale movements of cetaceans and pinnipeds around operational tidal turbines. The system comprises two high-frequency multibeam active sonars, which can accurately track animals in the horizontal plane. By offsetting the vertical angle of the sonars, the relative intensity of targets on the two sonars can also be used to resolve a vertical component of the animal location. For regularly vocalizing species, i.e., small cetaceans, a tetrahedral array of high frequency hydrophones mounted close to the sonars is used to measure both horizontal and vertical angles to cetacean echolocation clicks. This provides additional localization and tracking information for cetaceans and can also be used to distinguish between pinnipeds and cetaceans detected in the sonar data, based on the presence or absence of echolocation clicks. The system is cabled to shore for power, data transfer, and communications using turbine infrastructure. This allows for continuous operation over many months or years, which will be required to capture what may be rare interactions. The system was tested during a series of multi-week field tests, designed to test system integrity, carry out system calibrations, and test the efficiency of data collection, analyses, and archiving procedures. Overall, the system proved highly reliable, with the PAM system providing bearing accuracies to synthetic sounds of around 4.2 degrees for echolocation clicks with a signal to noise ratio above 15 dB. The system will be deployed close to an operational turbine in early 2022.
... However, very few studies are performed on a fine spatial scale and concurrent measurements of physical and biological data are lacking. Achieving this will require adopting novel methodological techniques (e.g., acoustics, underwater photography, cameras, gliders, telemetry) to improve our understanding of habitat use by marine animals to be able to link biophysical processes at a population level Polagye et al., 2020;Whitt et al., 2020). However, given the cost and capacity related to data collection, existing sources of information should be optimized and their relevance to new data evaluated. ...
There is about to be an abrupt step-change in the use of our coastal seas, specifically by the addition of large-scale offshore renewable energy developments to combat climate change. Many trade-offs will need to be weighed up for the future sustainable management of marine ecosystems between renewables and other uses (e.g., fisheries, marine protected areas). Therefore, we need a much greater understanding of how different marine habitats and ecosystems are likely to change with both natural and anthropogenic transformations. This work will present a review of predictive Bayesian approaches from ecosystem level, through to fine scale mechanistic understanding of foraging success by individual species, to identify consistent physical (e.g., bottom temperature) and biological (e.g., chlorophyll-a) indicators of habitat and ecosystem change over the last 30 years within the North Sea. These combined approaches illuminate the feasibility of integrating knowledge across scales to be able to address the spatio-temporal variability of biophysical indicators to ultimately strengthen predictions of population changes at ecosystem scales across broadly different habitat types. Such knowledge will provide an effective baseline for more strategic and integrated approaches to both monitoring studies and assessing anthropogenic impacts to be used within marine spatial planning considerations.
... The identification of priority research areas can fast-track the development of solutions to mitigate the identified changes. Polagye et al. (2020) proffer that the interaction between animals and infrastructure technology should be a priority area of investigation particularly, in terms of generating innovative ways to reduce or eliminate the stress caused by the electromagnetic fields from underwater cables (Czermański et al., 2021). Continuous assessment and research on strategies to reducing the impact of noise during construction should also be prioritized (Duquette et al., 2021). ...
... David John Edwards: Writingreview & editing. Edmonds et al., 2021;Ainsworth et al., 2020;Maurya et al., 2021;Kang et al., 2021 Priority Research • Identification of interaction between animals and energy harnessing devices • Reduction of noise impact during construction Polagye et al., 2020;Czermański et al., 2021;Duquette et al., 2021 ...
The growing global demand for sustainable and environmentally friendly energy has stimulated the rapid adoption of renewable offshore energy. However, infrastructure needed for green energy production ironically impacts upon marine species and biodiversity. Consequently, this positional review paper seeks to comprehensively synthesise the prevailing body of knowledge on the impact of offshore energy development on a broad range of marine species. An interpretivist philosophical stance and inductive reasoning was adopted using sci-entometric analysis to conduct a rich synthesis of extant literature. From an operational perspective, the Scopus database was utilised to search for key terms on the phenomena under investigation and using the VoS Viewer software for the identification of trends using scientometric maps. The analysis reveals that research in this area of science has increased significantly over the last decade but private sector involvement is conspicuous by its absence. Primary concerns among the research community include the impact of energy development on the abundance of species, pollution and biodiversity behaviour and migration. At present, researchers have extensively focused on the impact of offshore wind farms on fish and marine mammals. However, the literature reveals no significant long-term impact upon energy development on most marine species albeit, short-term interference has raised concerns (from sound, disruption of navigation and foraging patterns, and damage of habitat). To minimise short term disruption, researchers have recommended the use of acoustic deterrence during construction , enforcement of protected areas and continued research.
