4 January 2024 Plume motion characterization in unmanned aerial vehicle aerial video and imagery
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

Sediment plumes are generated from both natural and human activities in benthic environments, increasing the turbidity of the water and reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the benthic vegetation. Seagrasses, which are photosynthetic bioindicators of their environment, are threatened by chronic reductions in sunlight, impacting entire aquatic food chains. Our research uses unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) aerial video and imagery to investigate the characteristics of sediment plumes generated by a model of anthropogenic disturbance. The extent, speed, and motion of the plumes were assessed as these parameters may pertain to the potential impacts of plume turbidity on seagrass communities. In a case study using UAV video, the turbidity plume was observed to spread more than 200 ft over 20 min of the UAV campaign. The directional speed of the plume was estimated to be between 10.4 and 10.6 ft/min. This was corroborated by observation of the greatest plume turbidity and sediment load near the location of the disturbance and diminishing with distance. Further temporal studies are necessary to determine any long-term impacts of human activity-generated sediment plumes on seagrass beds.

© 2024 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)
Mehrube Mehrubeoglu, Kirk Cammarata, Hua Zhang, and Lifford McLauchlan "Plume motion characterization in unmanned aerial vehicle aerial video and imagery," Journal of Applied Remote Sensing 18(1), 016501 (4 January 2024). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JRS.18.016501
Received: 26 May 2023; Accepted: 12 December 2023; Published: 4 January 2024
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KEYWORDS
Video

Unmanned aerial vehicles

Image segmentation

Image processing

Video processing

Calibration

Fourier transforms

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