Drones in fish fauna assessment of rivers

The purpose of the study was to develop the method of using unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) to map fish fauna habitats in a large lowland river. The intention was to acquire and process spatial data to implement it in the Mesohabitat Simulation system (MesoHABSIM).

At three different water levels, remote sensing data was acquired by unmanned aerial vehicles on the lower Vistula River section. In parallel, depths and velocities of flowing water were measured. Orthophotomosaics were created from the collected images, overlaid with depth and velocity observations to identify hydromorphological units. Maps of fish fauna habitats under different water levels were obtained. The application of the developed procedure algorithm proved successful in habitat mapping studies on a large, deep river with opaque water. The significance of using orthophotomosaics presenting the river under well-defined flow conditions was proven to achieve high accuracy in mapping habitat conditions and reduce errors in habitat usability analyses by fish community.

The superiority of using unmanned aerial vehicles over other methods of collecting data on river habitats and depth and velocity measurements using the Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) method in large rivers with non-clarity water was confirmed. In addition, it was pointed out that drones provide high-resolution images under well-defined flow conditions, which are impossible to obtain using available cartographic materials. The validity of using the incomparably cheaper ADCP technology relative to laser technology, whose application in rivers with opaque water is very complicated, was also confirmed.