A drone’s eye view: A preliminary assessment of the efficiency of drones in mapping shallow-water benthic assemblages

Julian Evans

A drone’s eye view: A preliminary assessment of the efficiency of drones in mapping shallow-water benthic assemblages - Firenze University Press 2020

Open Access

The study assesses consumer drone efficiency for surveying shallow-water benthic cover. We hypothesised that using a drone would reduce duration, and manpower requirements, while increasing accuracy, relative to manual surveys. Results obtained during this study clearly indicated that automated drone surveys were faster and more accurate than manual survey methods under most circumstances. This result has important implications for the scientific and economic aspects of the process and would have a multiplicative effect in monitoring programs that require regular surveys.


Creative Commons

978-88-5518-147-1.50

10.36253/978-88-5518-147-1.50 doi

Aerial imagery Image analysis Benthic mapping Drone survey k-clustering Drones