Norwegian Infrastructure for drone-based research, mapping and monitoring in the coastal zone

Norway’s coastline is more than 100,000 km long, including all islands and skerries. However, only a fraction of its species and habitat types have been mapped. These include threatened seabirds and mammals, essential and diverse ecosystems that capture and store carbon, and that serve as nursery grounds and food for countless species, as well as great commercial resources. The coastal zone is rather inaccessible, where research vessels rarely enter, and small, rubber boats provide limited spatial coverage. This is where the use of flying and smaller surface drones can revolutionize environmental research, mapping, and monitoring in Norway and abroad. During the five-year period 2020 to 2025, SeaBee will establish a national center for drone-based services for use in coastal and aquatic research, mapping and monitoring of species and habitats, algae and animal communities, and anthropogenic impacts. This is a blue-green investment that will benefit research communities, management, and coastal industries throughout the country. Also, it positions Norway at the forefront of international drone research and monitoring applications. Through pre-programmed flight planning and automated procedures, SeaBee is streamlining drone data collection and analysis and making high-quality products available in a timely and cost-effective manner. Flying drones equipped with cameras and sophisticated spectral sensors are used to take images on demand and at centimeter resolution – more than a hundred times better than available satellite products. Recorded species and nature types are classified using state-of-the-art artificial intelligence tools. Products are verified from ground truth observations by experienced ecologists. 'Data and mapping products are stored in cloud-based solutions and made freely available for research and management applications through the customized online data interface. SeaBee is thus establishing novel and cost-effective solutions for use in aquatic research, and for mapping and monitoring of nature in coastal zones, and hereby setting new standards for environmental research and management. SeaBee is a cooperation between the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA, lead), the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), the Norwegian Computing Center (NR), the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA), the Institute of Marine Research (IMR), and GRID-Arendal (GRIDA), with Tiepoint (former Andøya Space) and SpectroFly ApS as industrial partners. SeaBee aims to deliver an interdisciplinary national center for drone-based research, mapping, and environmental monitoring with world-leading expertise. In this spirit, we are happy to invite anyone with an interest in the coastal zone or technical enhancements to contribute to the continuous development of methodology and drone-based solutions for a sustainable future. Read more at www.seabee.no

SeaBee will establish a national center for drone-based services for use in coastal and aquatic research, mapping and monitoring of habitats, animal communities, and anthropogenic impacts. SeaBee will facilitate delivery of comprehensive solutions for cost-effective data collection and analysis of the coastal zone using small portable Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), also referred to as aerial drones. The combination of sophisticated environmental sensors and aerial drones will enable collection of large scale, high-resolution data, and data products that will benefit research and management efforts for healthier and cleaner coastal and aquatic environments. Unlike traditional observation techniques, portable drones can cover large areas efficiently, and provide a spatial sensitivity of typically 1000 times better than state-of-the-art satellite products. By delivering a beyond state-of-the-art tool to address present day and future environmental challenges in a time- and cost-effective manner, SeaBee will greatly facilitate the acquisition of big data necessary for ecosystem management, and place Norway at the forefront of international drone research and monitoring of aquatic systems. SeaBee will put together four state-of-the-art components in a novel interdisciplinary configuration: 1) Aerial drones with sophisticated sensors will collect high resolution environment-relevant data, 2) advanced automated data pipelines and routines using machine learning to process the data for thematic mapping and targeted object detection, 3) novel cloud solutions to secure long-term storage and accessibility of the data nation-wide, and 4) easy-accessed GIS (Geographical Information System) web portals to deliver customized data products via cloud solutions directly to end-users, including researchers, management authorities, technology industry, university students and, in the long term, society.