Low cost photographic tool for the assessment and monitoring of shallow-water benthic communities
1998
Licuanan, W.Y. (Philippines Univ. Diliman, Diliman, 1101 Quezon City (Philippines). Bolinao Marine Lab.)
Increased awareness of the degradation of coastal resources and the need for their management, especially at the community-level, has led to the deployment of a number of research teams that conduct surveys and monitoring of reefs and associated habitats with little or no cross calibration among them. One consequence of this is the lack of standardization among different teams and in the uneven quality of data, even with the application of the identical field methods. These problems could be minimized if a verifiable, permanent record of the studies could be made using techniques that collect a large amount of information without the help of specialist observers. A standardized photographic monopod and deployment procedures for this monopod are presented to meet this need. This low-cost system utilizes single-use underwater cameras in combination with readily available materials. Tests show that the level of distortion introduced by the camera's plastic lens is negligible although the light construction and lack of a flash limit the conditions under which the camera can be used. Slight deviations in camera angle also appear to be unimportant. Simple image quantification/digitization methods based on counts (using plastic overlays on photographs) yielded results that are as good as those collected using computer digitizers. Provisions are possible to check and correct for improper deployment of the system and slight deviations in procedure, which will be important when the system is deployed by non-specialists or laypersons. Aside from its usefulness in large-scale assessment and monitoring studies involving the latter, the monopod methodology is ideal for applications that require rapid deployment within a short time (e.g., to establish monitoring sites before an oil spill spreads)
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