The main applications of remote sensing for aquaculture practice and management are: (i) inventory and monitoring of aquaculture and the environment; and (ii) environmental impacts of aquaculture. Monitoring of aquaculture requires similar information on water quality and physical prosperities of water bodies as those required for aquaculture planning. However, it is the temporal aspect of monitoring that is very important and applications must meet users’ requirements related to the frequency of observation and the speed with which data and information are delivered to the users. Monitoring applications include regulators wanting to monitor development in the coastal zone, which can make use of both high and low resolution optical and imaging radar data monitoring. Remote sensing provides government agencies with capabilities to regularly monitor the extent of aquaculture development, and to check if it is proceeding according to marine spatial plans and/or regulations, or if it is adversely affecting the environment.
The near real-time delivery of remote sensing data and its integration with in situ data and models for monitoring that the environment can provide timely information and even forecasts that are useful for aquaculture management. Recent progress in ocean colour imagery processing and the availability of catalogues of images processed for primary production and suspended matter open up new monitoring perspectives. Some of the challenges posed for remote sensing by complex coastal waters and environments are now less problematic further offshore; therefore, applications of remote sensing should allow for an increase in development and management of mariculture further off the coast and offshore. The use of remote sensing coupled with GIS could be of immense value to developing or enhancing environmental impact assessment related studies for assessing the potential impacts of aquaculture on coastal environments where a geospatial EIA of potential shrimp farming sites offered advantages over a conventional EIA, where the geospatial EIA procedure involved sampling and analysis and the fitting of mathematical models for spectral reflectance data obtained from satellite imagery.
Source: Aqua Aquaria