Monitoring fish using imaging sonar: Capacity, challenges and future perspective

The demand for fish products, which provide crucial protein for humans, is rising as the global population grows. In contrast, fish stock is declining due to human activity, environmental changes and overfishing. Fish monitoring provides valuable support data for effective fishery management and ecosystem conservation. The common monitoring methods are based on manual sampling, which is time-consuming, laborious and intrusive. Imaging sonar is a hydroacoustic system that produces acoustic images similar to optical images by transmitting and receiving sound waves, allowing for in situ monitoring of fish non-intrusively in the dark and turbid water environments where optical cameras are limited. In the last decade, imaging sonar, especially high frequency multibeam forward-looking sonar and side-scan sonar, has been widely used in fish monitoring. We reviewed the literature from the previous decade on the use of these two types of imaging sonar in fish species identification, abundance estimation, length measurement and behaviour analysis, as well as the sonar imagery processing concerning fish. The review results show that these imaging sonars are efficient and effective tools for fish monitoring in complex environments. The challenges include (1) the recognition of small fish forming dense aggregations; (2) species identification, which limits their use in species-specific studies; (3) time-consuming massive data processing. Therefore, advanced algorithms for sonar imagery processing and integrations with other sampling technologies are needed for future development.