An echo analysis technique for estimating the fish population

Abstract

The development of an algorithm for the estimation of biomass by acoustic remote sensing is presented in this paper. The distinctive features of the algorithm include the implementation of time-varied gain function, proper accounting of beam factor effects, implementation of backscattering levels for selected species and processing for echo-count as well as echo-integration. In order to optimize the backscattering levels, numerical analysis for geometrical backscattering of selected marine species were carried out and validated with in situ measurements. The biomass information of the concerned marine specie is made available by subjecting the backscattered raw data to a series of processes. The performance validation of the algorithm under in situ conditions yielded encouraging population estimation results and is being fine-tuned with the field data. This algorithm will provide an efficient technique to parametrically compute the target strength, leading to the estimation of the stock of commercially important selected marine species under varied environmental conditions in different regions.