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Comparison of manual and semi-automatic underwater imagery analyses for monitoring of benthic hard-bottom organisms at offshore renewable energy installations

  • OFFSHORE WIND FARM IMPACTS
  • Published:
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Abstract

The construction of new offshore wind farms is one of the strategies to fulfill growing demands for “green” renewable energy. Underwater imagery is an important tool in the environmental monitoring of offshore renewable energy installations, especially in rocky benthic environment where traditional techniques are not applicable. Underwater video from the high energy Norwegian Sea coast was used for this study. Traditional manual point-based benthic cover estimations from selected frames were tested against a semi-automatic approach which involved making mosaic images from underwater videos. The study demonstrates that results of manual and semi-automatic benthic cover estimations are similar, although the manual analysis has a much larger spread in the variability of the data with many outliers due to the limited amount of points used in the analysis. Although the number of benthic features that could be extracted by computer using color is fewer than those that can be detected with the human eye, the described semi-automatic method is less biased and less costly in terms of qualified staff. Implementation of the semi-automatic method does not require any programming skills and has the ability to quickly and simply process larger amount of underwater imagery which would be of decisive advantage to the industry.

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Acknowledgements

The study was conducted within Work Package 5 of the Norwegian Centre for Offshore Wind Energy (NORCOWE). We acknowledge the support at marine operations provided by Halvor Mohn, Argus AS and the backing of Vestavind Offshore AS and their representative Dag Breistein. We want to thank the captain and crew of RV “Hakon Mosby” for their support and hard work throughout oceanography cruises. Also we would like to thank Svein Winther, Sergei Olenin, and Erling Heggųy who initiated parts of the project, and provided encouragement and support.

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Author notes

  1. Marie-Lise Schläppy

    Present address: Centre for Energy and Environment (CfEE), Environmental Research Institute, Ormlie Road, Thurso, Caithness, KW14 7EE, Scotland

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Marine Science and Technology Center, Klaipėda University, Herkaus Manto g. 84, Klaipėda, 92294, Lithuania

    Aleksej Šaškov

  2. Uni Enviroment, Uni Research, Thormøhlensgt. 49 B, Bergen, 5006, Norway

    Thomas G. Dahlgren

  3. Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping/Joint Hydrographic Center, University of New Hampshire, 24 Colovos Road, Durham, NH, 03824, USA

    Yuri Rzhanov

Authors
  1. Aleksej Šaškov
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  2. Thomas G. Dahlgren
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  4. Marie-Lise Schläppy
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Correspondence to Aleksej Šaškov.

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Guest editors: Steven Degraer, Jennifer Dannheim, Andrew B. Gill, Han Lindeboom & Dan Wilhelmsson / Environmental impacts of offshore wind farms

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Šaškov, A., Dahlgren, T.G., Rzhanov, Y. et al. Comparison of manual and semi-automatic underwater imagery analyses for monitoring of benthic hard-bottom organisms at offshore renewable energy installations. Hydrobiologia 756, 139–153 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-014-2072-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-014-2072-5

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