Ferry Ocean Colour Observation Systems
Coastal oceans are highly dynamic, and of great biogeochemical, ecological, and economic importance, thus requiring increasing monitoring and management. In the Salish Sea, the interannual productivity variability is suggested to contribute to the large variability in the Pacific salmon populations in the past 50 years, which have exhibited a general decline in the past decades. This has led to considerable uncertainties in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) current forecast models. Fundamental to the improvement of forecast return models is data with sufficient time and spatial resolutions to address the dynamics of the environment; current research cruises are not effective in observing the Salish Sea at the required resolution. Data collected by satellites, sensors aboard ships of opportunity, and citizens are complementary and, together with data from research cruises, provide information at the needed scales to assist in fisheries management.
Water quality in the ocean has a lot to do with the health of the ocean, or productivity. This can largely affect Pacific Salmon populations, which have been declining in the past decades. To help fisheries managers understand the health of our fish stocks, we collected more information on the health of the ocean — using satellites, sensors aboard BC Ferries, and passengers — to quantify the health of our coastal waters. The acquisition and integration of spatial-temporal environmental data should assist in fisheries management in the Salish Sea.
We built a multidisciplinary group of partners in academia (UVic, Dal, Laval), government (DFO, Parks Canada), ocean-related industry (BC Ferries, Satlantic), and non-governmental organizations (Pacific Salmon Foundation-PSF, Ocean Networks Canada-ONC), and communities (ferry passengers and fishermen), with expertise in ocean science and remote sensing, computer science, statistics, fisheries management, fisheries biology, community engagement, geography, local knowledge, and engineering.
Outcomes from this project were: a framework to engage the marine community, citizens, government, industry, and scientists, in taking advantage of non-specialized assets to fulfill the needs of marine observation data in the face of limited availability of specialized resources, such as research vessels; contribute to the decision-making in fisheries management; training of HQP with interdisciplinary knowledge in community engagement, ocean sciences, technology, and resource management to be future innovators; providing end-users economic opportunities to expand sales and to enrich and improve their social and environmental outreach initiatives; providing end-users with spatial-temporal environmental information and associated analysis with salmon stock assessment to advise on implementation of salmon forecast return models.
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