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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Mar. Sci.
Sec. Ocean Observation
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmars.2024.1386267
This article is part of the Research Topic Advances in Autonomous Ships (AS) For Ocean Observation View all 11 articles

The use of autonomous underwater vehicles for monitoring aquaculture setups in a high-energy shallow water environment: Case study Belgian North Sea

Provisionally accepted
Christopher Peck Christopher Peck 1*Kobus Langedock Kobus Langedock 1Fred Fourie Fred Fourie 1Leandro Ponsoni Leandro Ponsoni 1Ine Moulaert Ine Moulaert 1Alexia Semeraro Alexia Semeraro 2Tomas Sterckx Tomas Sterckx 3Ruben Geldhof Ruben Geldhof 4Bert Groenendaal Bert Groenendaal 5Wieter Boone Wieter Boone 1
  • 1 Flanders Marine Institute, Ostend, Belgium
  • 2 Institute for Agricultural, Fisheries and Food Research (ILVO), Merelbeke, Belgium
  • 3 DEME group, Antwerp, Belgium
  • 4 Jan De Nul Group, Aalst, Belgium
  • 5 Sioen Industries (Belgium), Ardooie, Belgium

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Effective and frequent inspections are crucial for understanding the ecological and structural health of aquaculture setups. Monitoring in turbid, shallow, and dynamic environments can be time-intensive, expensive, and with a certain level of risk. The use of monitoring techniques based on autonomous vehicles is an attractive alternative approach because these vehicles are becoming easier to use, cheaper and more apt to carry different sensors. In this study, we used an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) equipped with interferometric side scan sonar to observe an aquaculture setup in the Belgain North Sea. The surveys provided information on the longlines and indicated that the mussel dropper lines touched the seabed, implying that mussel growth weighed the longlines down. The side scan imagery also captured significant scouring around the longline anchors and localised debris on the seabed, which is important information to ensure the long-term sustainability of the setup and impact on the seabed. The results show that observing mussel longlines in a turbid, shallow, and high-energy environment using an AUV is a viable technique that can provide valuable information. Thus, the present study provides key insights into the application of innovative uncrewed monitoring techniques and forms an important step towards efficient and sustainable management of offshore aquaculture setups.

    Keywords: 1, Autonomous underwater vehicles 2, Side scan sonar 3, Mussel aquaculture setup 4, Shallow high-energy environment 5, Belgian North Sea

    Received: 14 Feb 2024; Accepted: 08 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Peck, Langedock, Fourie, Ponsoni, Moulaert, Semeraro, Sterckx, Geldhof, Groenendaal and Boone. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Christopher Peck, Flanders Marine Institute, Ostend, Belgium

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