The Advanced Survey Technologies program supports ecosystem-based fisheries management through new or innovative uses of sampling technologies, including: multi-frequency acoustic systems, remotely operated vehicles, instrumented buoys, and instrumented small craft.
Our Objectives
![Advanced Surveys Technology logo.]()
- Conduct fisheries research and surveys using the instrumentation and methods our program develops.
- Develop, refine, and employ advanced survey technologies to improve the accuracy, precision, and efficiency of fisheries surveys and thus the resulting stock assessments.
- Characterize measurement and sampling uncertainties, and define gaps in existing data
- Maintain an emphasis on the scientific objectives, as opposed to the instrument or instrument platform being developed
Research Activities
- Assess stocks of coastal pelagic species using acoustic-trawl surveys.
- Utilize remotely-operated underwater vehicles to assess white abalone and demersal fish (e.g., rockfish) populations.
- Progress restoration of white abalone populations through outplanting.
- Progress research and development in:
- Target Strength and Remote Target Identification, for improving acoustic classification of CPS and ensuring accurate measures when deriving biomass and abundance
- Uncertainty Estimation, to characterize and mitigate uncertainties inherent in acoustic measures
- Sound Scatter Modeling, for estimating expected acoustic responses and understanding physical processes in natural behaviors
- Instrumented Small Craft, for conducting research in nearshore, littoral, or riverine environments
- Instrumented Buoys, to obtaining long-term datasets for characterizing temporally- and spatially-varying ecosystems
- Acoustic Survey Technology, to continue the development and application of underwater acoustics concordant with advances in sonar technologies
An oceanic whitetip shark swims near the surface of the water. Photo courtesy of John Carlson.
Dense beds of small Atlantic sea scallops photographed on the ocean floor in the Mid-Atlantic in 2015. Credit: NOAA Fisheries.
