Protect what cannot be replaced
The ocean covers more than 70% of our planet’s surface, provides livelihoods and nourishment for more than three billion people, and brings $3 trillion into the global economy each year. Yet, for many, the ocean still remains largely out of sight and as a consequence, largely out of mind.
This is creating a big crisis. Most of the world’s fisheries have been fished to the limit or beyond. The ocean has mitigated our impacts on the climate, absorbing 30% of our CO2 emissions, but this has led to warmer and more acidic water. And each year we dump about eight million tons of plastic into the ocean.
Governments have agreed on an ambitious global agenda on oceans as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDG 14 sets out a wide-ranging set of targets for better stewardship of ocean resources – including better management of fisheries,large and small; and protection of key marine resources.
To make this happen, technology has a large role to play. A rapidly proliferating array of advanced sensors carried by fleets of satellites, ocean-going drones and fishing nets, is producing a flood of new data. New analytical techniques such as artificial intelligence translate this data, providing new tools to manage ocean resources.
Let’s take a look at five technologies and innovations that can help us clean and protect the sea and all the life in it.
Cleaning up the ocean
Cleaning the oceans in this lifetime seems impossible. Even with nets, collecting the immense amount of plastic floating in the water would take billions of dollars and thousands of years. But one 20-year-old, Boyan Slat, doesn’t agree with that, so he started The Ocean Cleanup, with the objective of removing 90% of ocean plastic by 2040.
To do so, Slat decided to use long floating barriers that work with ocean currents to passively collect the trash. As most of the current flows underneath, and the plastic floats at the top, this technology prevents the bycatch of unwanted fish and other marine species. It’s designed for large-scale deployments and covers millions of square miles.
Slat described the process. “Why move through the oceans, if the oceans can move through you? I came up with a passive system of floating barriers that is attached to the seabed and oriented in a V-shape. The barriers first catch, and then concentrate the plastic, enabling a platform to efficiently extract the plastic once it arrives in the center of the V.”
High-tech tagging
Research on animal tagging has exploded in the last couple of decades, with promising results for marine life. Electronic tags are very tiny and weigh less than a penny now. They are attached to any type of creature, no matter its size, and transmit data about movements, migration patterns and interactions between wildlife to satellites and receiver stations.
Scientists have been able to study animals ranging from six-gram salmon smolts to 150-ton whales and everything in between. The data collected has improved our understanding of animals’ locations and population estimates, as well as how they respond to climate change and human-made disturbances such as plastic pollution.
“Placing tags on marine animals has allowed the animal to show us their true range, use of habitat, movements and foraging behavior, and their migration corridors,” said Michael Weise, program manager of the Marine Mammals & Biology Program at the Office of Naval Research.
Smarter nets
Every year, millions of dead fish are thrown back into the ocean. They were too young and small or caught unsafely, and end up dying because they’re so stressed out from being caught. It’s an unsustainable and wasteful practice when much of the world’s population depends on fish to eat. But there are final solutions being made.
One type of technology came out of a partnership between scientists and fishing companies in New Zealand. Precision Seafood Harvesting uses high-tech trawl nets to identify and catch specific fish species instead of using traditional sprawling nets that catch everything in their path. It keeps more fish alive, healthy and sustainable.
Another company, Safety Net Technologies, created a trawl aimed at making sure other marine species don’t get caught in fishing nets. It can be retrofitted on existing fishing equipment, uses less fuel and causes less damage to sea beds, and has special escape rings that allow fish to get out.
Ocean robots
For years, scientists have been using robot-like machines to explore the depths of the ocean where humans cannot go. Now they can control robots above the water and send them with lights, sensors and tools to bring back samples, take photos and explore the seabed and its creatures that live deep.
An example is the Wave Glider SV3, an autonomous, solar-powered robot made by startup Liquid Robotics. The SV3 is the updated version of the original SV2, which uses the ocean’s endless supply of energy as propulsion to collect data during missions that can last up to a year. Both have Wi-Fi onboard, as well as large amounts of data storage.
“By providing the ability to deploy Wave Gliders across most of the planet and deliver ocean data in a new and cost-effective way, weʼre enabling broad access to affordable ocean exploration,” said Bill Vass, the company’s CEO. “The SV3 customers have a competitive advantage to capture data in the most challenging ocean conditions.”
Intelligent cameras
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, (UCSD) built an artificially intelligent camera intended to monitor and track marine endangered species. The submergible system records video when it hears a vocalization created by a marine animal and produces relevant data for biological monitoring.
The SphereCam has six cameras orientated on the faces of a cube and provides a 360° view of the surrounding environment. It can run on batteries for weeks without getting wet. It was first created to monitor the vaquita porpoise, but now researchers are using it to study a vast array of species.
For Antonella Wilby, who developed the SphereCam, the project builds on her vision as an engineer to build tools to help all fields of science. Her primary goal is “to solve problems in the field of robotics and apply that to exploring the ocean and the rest of the world,” she said in a statement.
