Satellite Applications
How does NOAA Fisheries use satellites? From coral reef management to monitoring illegal fishing activity, learn about the many ways that satellites contribute to effective marine resource management.
Aquaculture Management
Domestic marine aquaculture is vital for supporting our nation’s seafood production and rebuilding protected species and habitats. Satellite remote sensing supports aquaculture through farm siting optimization, harmful algal bloom and water quality alerts, cage and farm infrastructure impacts, macro-algae harvesting, shellfish growth models, and more.
Coral Reef Management
Scientists at the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center monitor coral reef environments for potential disturbances to critical habitat and coral bleaching events. Coral Reef Watch is a NOAA tool that uses satellite-derived sea surface temperature to issue risk alerts for reefs prone to bleaching. Marine heat waves continue to rise, threatening reefs worldwide.
Dynamic Ocean Management
Multi-satellite-informed models provide data to scientists and decision makers in near real time. This enables them to effectively adapt to rapidly changing conditions. Several satellite-informed tools help minimize fisheries bycatch, mitigate ship interactions with protected species, and model the responses of top predators to environmental change.
Technology in Action:
Ecosystem Assessments
Ecosystem Status Reports are produced by each fisheries science center on an annual basis. These reports provide advice and ecosystem context to regional fisheries management councils, who ultimately set fishing catch limits. These reports often contain information on past and current ecological conditions, including temperature and ocean color.
Ecosystem Modeling
As a strategic management tool, NOAA Fisheries uses modeling frameworks capable of producing realistic simulations of ecosystem dynamics. Many models integrate physical, chemical, ecological, and fisheries dynamics in a spatially explicit, 3D domain. They can assimilate satellite data streams to help initialize a model run using current (or past) conditions.
Technology in Action:
Habitat Classification
Marine organisms may occupy a very specific or broad range of environmental conditions. The comprehensive viewpoint of satellites enables scientists to contextualize a species’ habitat over time and space, and in turn model their distribution from satellites. NOAA Fisheries uses satellites to predict habitat for marine mammals, turtles, squid, and more.
Technology in Action:
Harmful Algal Bloom Forecasting
Harmful algal blooms can cause significant mortality events for fish and other marine life. The toxins produced by some blooms can get into the environment and the tissues of animals, especially shellfish, causing costly fishery closures. NOAA Fisheries science centers monitor for harmful algal blooms using field data, satellite-informed models and observations, and other technologies.
Technology in Action:
- Wildlife Algal Toxin Research and Response Network for the U.S. West Coast
- Imaging FlowCytobot
- California Harmful Algae Risk Mapping
Illegal Fishing Activity
Illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing is a global threat. Monitoring fishing activity is possible with Automatic Identification Systems, and can help detect misreporting from licensed fishing vessels, which makes up a large sum of illegal and unregulated activity.
Population Assessments
Modern very high resolution satellites can sense an area the size of a common laptop from space. These missions are being exploited through commercial data buys to image whales and other large marine life from satellites. Using manual annotation and artificial intelligence techniques, NOAA Fisheries is working towards augmenting traditional surveys with automated population assessments from space.