Spatial assessment of seagrass ecosystem using the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in Teluk Awur, Coastal Water of Jepara

Abstract

Seagrass ecosystem are highly sensitive to environmental changes. They are also in global decline and under threat from global climate change and a variety of anthropogenic factors. There is now, a spatial assessment method for the monitoring of the seagrass beds is needed, so that changes in seagrass condition can be understood. Typical monitoring approaches have included remote sensing from satellites and unmanned aerial vehicle platform, and ground base ecological survey. The techniques can suffer from temporal and spatial inconsistency, or are very localised making it hard to assess seagrass meadows in a structurer manner. The aim of research was present the technique using a lightweight drone and consumer grade cameras to produce very high spatial resolution mosaics of intertidal site in Teluk Awur, Jepara water, Indonesia. The data collection methodologies followed by digitation method techniques to produce coverage estimates, with ground check at location, with data drone analysis. This result show that digitation method, can show between the observed and classified low coverage seagrass (<25%), to middle coverage seagrass (between 25< and <50%), also can detect other biotic features, like massive coral, macroalgae also the flat sand and coral rubble.