Guidance for using drones to monitor coastal ecosystems

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Coastal rocky reef habitats support diverse and productive ecosystems, as well as valuable commercial, recreational, and customary fisheries. With increasing pressures on coastal areas from land-use, coastal development and climate change, there is a need to effectively monitor these environments at scales that can inform management strategies.

Traditional monitoring of coastal ecosystems includes a variety of data collection methods such as visual observations of community assemblages and water and sediment quality metrics. These on-ground survey methods have greatly assisted in understanding the health and community composition of surveyed areas, however, they are typically labour-intensive, are restricted to a small spatial footprint, and can bias results towards accessible areas. Gathering data at greater spatial scales reduces the inherent variability of results associated with small scale sub-sampling and increases our understanding of the whole ecosystem, including habitats and areas not accessible to traditional methods.