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
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- 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