NOAA Fisheries Surveys: Where Big Things Come in Small Packages

Anne Allen Fishery Biologist
NOAA Fisheries Service

NOAA’s Advanced Sampling Technologies Working Group - a coordinated effort among all NOAA Fisheries Service Science Centers - is developing a portable autonomous underwater vehicle  to pursue data required for ecosystems-based fisheries management. This AUV can be deployed from fisheries survey vessels, small craft, or the shore to work on a variety of marine ecosystem investigations. This is the first NOAA Fisheries Service AUV, and it is the first of its kind to include a suite of fisheries-specific instrumentation that allows scientists to investigate areas previously unobservable from shipboard instrumentation, such as shallow areas, areas near the sea-surface, and the ocean floor.

 

“We are very excited about the promising applications of this technology,” said Dr. Norm Bartoo, Acting Director of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center. “The potential use of these underwater vehicles packed with research equipment may give fishery managers valuable information on fish populations in the habitat where they live.”

Traditional net sampling methods are not appropriate to survey the abundances of overfished, threatened, or endangered marine species. “By combining information gathered from acoustical and optical survey technologies, we should be able to identify and quantify fish in their natural habitats, without harming them,” said Dr. David Demer, lead scientist of the Advanced Survey Technologies Group (AST) at the SWFSC, in charge of managing and implementing the new technology.

While the AUV boasts a wide array of high tech features, it is also compact, composed of mostly off-the-shelf components, and can be hand-deployed from shore, a small-craft, or a research vessel. Investigations on appropriate spatial and temporal scales can be widely accessible to NOAA researchers.  For example, the AUV can easily be shipped anywhere in the world to conduct or enhance stock assessments of fish and to gather information on how they are influenced by their prey and the environment. Essential habitats can be characterized and more economically monitored over long time periods.  These capabilities mean the AUV platform can improve the efficiencies of many routine studies and make other investigations feasible for the first time.

SWFSC AST scientists are currently testing and refining this prototype vehicle and conducting pilot research projects that will guide future fisheries research investments in AUVs.  Video of the AUV in action is available on the NOAA Fisheries Service, Southwest Fisheries Science Center Web site.