Category: guest blog

Social mapping of Australian bays and conservation of Fish Aggregating Bryozoans

Guest Blog By Dr. Adrian Flynn(a) and Dr. Travis Dutka(b)

(a) Marine Ecologist and Director at Fathom Pacific

(b) Senior Lecturer at La Trobe University Department of Ecology, Environment, and Evolution.

The waters of Western Port in southeastern Australia are a recreational fishing haven and hidden beneath its turbid waters, a unique fragile seafloor community has been newly described.  Here, bryozoans, skeleton-forming filter-feeding organisms also known as ‘lace corals’, form expansive areas of reef that support a high diversity and abundance of macroinvertebrates important to snapper and other prized recreational fish species.

Figure 1: Underwater imagery of the bryozoan reefs revealed remarkable biogenic reef structures with abundant invertebrate life surrounded by large areas of bare sediment.

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Guest Blog: Precision aquatic plant assessment and management in Michigan Lakes

By Jennifer L. Jermalowicz-Jones
Restorative LakeSciences is actively involved in the management and restoration of nearly 60 lakes in the state of Michigan and on water bodies in other states such as California and Wisconsin.  As an innovative specialty firm of advanced-degreed limnology experts, our goal is to provide thorough educational training to lake communities while using the most innovative technologies for lake improvements.  BioBase software (Contour Innovations, LLC) in combination with the Lowrance® HDS8 side- and down-scanning capabilities allows us to precisely determine the biovolume of the submersed aquatic vegetation in inland lakes.  Additionally, it also assists in the determination of individual aquatic vegetation bed areas that are mapped by aquatic botanists to be treated precisely with systemic or contact aquatic herbicides or with other removal technologies (Figure 1).  This technology has resulted in highly effective reductions of nuisance aquatic vegetation biovolume and bed densities due to the precision of treatments.  As a result, all of our lake management communities have been satisfied with the strategy and can easily see significant progress within a single season.
Restorative Lake Sciences, Evans Lake, Michigan, ciBioBase, BioBase, Eurasian watermilfoil, mapping, aquatic plants
Figure 1. ciBioBase aquatic vegetation heatmap collected by Grant Jones, Field Operations Manager, Restorative Lake Sciences (left) and Eurasian watermilfoil beds delineated with companion species surveys and the BioBase polygon tool.  Polygons were exported from BioBase and uploaded to Google Earth.
Jennifer L. Jermalowicz-Jones, MS, Ph.D Candidate, is the Water Resources Director at Restorative Lake Sciences and oversees over nearly 60 inland lake projects which include aquatic vegetation mapping and management, lake sediment reduction studies and management, algal quantification and identification and algal management programs, and watershed management programs.  She has over 24 years of experience in lake research and management and is pursuing her doctoral degree from Michigan State University in Water Resource Management.  She is also the President of the Michigan Chapter of the North American Lake Management Society, serves as the Science Advisory Chair on the Michigan Lake and Stream Associations Executive Board of Directors, has won numerous awards and grants for her aquatic ecosystem research, and has presented numerous papers at state and national conferences on water resource and lake management.

Amendment to BioBase Guest Blog: GIS Tools helping CAP manage sedimentation

Earlier this year, Senior Biologist Scott Bryan from the Central Arizona Project (CAP) blogged about how the CAP is using BioBase to manage sedimentation in Arizona’s lifeblood 336-mile aqueduct.  Since then, CAP GIS Wizard Glenn Emanuel has worked some amazing magic on the BioBase grid exports using Spatial and 3D Analyst Extensions for ArcGIS (Figure 1).

Central Arizona Project, sedimentation, Lowrance, ciBioBase, BioBase, sonar, mapping, acoustics
Figure 1. Images showing the change in sediment volume prior to and after experimental dredging activities in a Forebay of the CAP canal.  The Raster Calculator in ArcGIS’s Spatial Analyst was used to subtract a “current” bathymetry from a baseline bathymetry (e.g., “as built”) to estimate sediment height and volume.  Images are 3-dimensionally enhanced using 3D Analyst for ArcGIS. Image courtesy of Scott Bryan and Glenn Emanuel, Central Arizona Project

The data and images allow CAP to make informed decisions regarding the efficiency of sediment removal operations.  In addition, ArcScene was used to produce a 3D scene of the forebay (Figure 2), which can then be animated with a video fly-through.

Central Arizona Project, sedimentation, ciBioBase, ArcScene, Lowrance, BioBase, sonar, mapping, acoustics
Figure 2. “Fly-through” images of sediment height  in Little Harquahala Forebay in the CAP Canal collected by Lowrance HDS sonar and GPS, BioBase cloud processing software, and finally exported/imported into ArcScene.  Image courtesy of Scott Bryan and Glenn Emanuel, Central Arizona Project.

Any user of BioBase properly equipped with the proper third party GIS software can create these amazing map products that are more than just pretty pictures.  They create a real-life, tangible perspective of aquatic resource conditions that BioBase users are interested in managing, protecting, and restoring.

Guest Blog: Using BioBase to determine sedimentation in the Central Arizona Project canal

by Scott Bryan

The Central Arizona Project (CAP) is a multipurpose water resource development and management project that provides irrigation, municipal and industrial water to much of Arizona.  The primary means of water conveyance is a 336-mile concrete-lined aqueduct that transports water from the Colorado River, on Arizona’s western border, across the State to Phoenix, and then southward to the aqueduct terminus near Tucson.  Each year, over 1.5 million acre-feet of water is delivered to our customers.

Since its completion in 1993, the aqueduct system has experienced increasingly severe sedimentation that creates problems within the pumping plants and in the aqueduct itself.  Because the sediments can decrease the flow capacity of the aqueduct, cause damage to pumps and internal systems, and restrict flow through critical filtration units, it is imperative that dredging operations occur periodically.

sedimentation, ciBioBase, water volume, depth, mapping, bathymetry
CAP forebay dredging in 2009

In the past, CAP performed intensive sonar based sediment studies to determine bathymetry and the amount of deposition in the forebay of each of the 13 pumping plants.  The surveys show when and where dredging operations should occur.  These surveys were contracted to outside companies with costs ranging from $40,000 to $120,000 annually.

In 2012, CAP began to use the sonar technology provided by BioBase to conduct its own bathymetry surveys in the pumping plant forebays.  Water depths are compared to historical baseline surveys and the volume of sediment in each forebay can easily be calculated.  Annual surveys allow us to compare sedimentation from year-to-year to determine loading rates and critical areas to target sediment removal.  Surveys of all 13 forebays can now be accomplished in three days rather than six months, and when compared to the expensive surveys from the past, are equally as accurate.

ciBioBase, bathymetry, water volume, depth, Lowrance, acoustics, mapping, sonar, sedimentation, dredging
Blue-scale bathymetric map of a CAP forebay.  The light blue contours show an area that is extremely shallow and is in need of sediment removal.

 

ciBioBase, sedimentation, Lowrance, downscan, sonar, mapping, bathymetry, depth, water volume
Example transect design and resultant bathymetric map coupled with the sonar log viewer.  Notice the detailed image of the forebay’s trash racks produced by Lowrance HDS DownScan
This new approach to bathymetric and sedimentation mapping saves time and money, allows us to evaluate results immediately, and makes dredging operations more efficient and timely.

Scott Bryan is the Senior Biologist for Central Arizona Project (CAP).  After receiving an M.S. in Fisheries Management at South Dakota State University, Scott worked as a research biologist for Arizona Game and Fish for 10 years, then specialized in lake and stream management for seven years at a private consulting firm in Albuquerque.  Scott’s current position at CAP includes a broad scope of work, including aquatic and terrestrial vegetation control, fisheries and wildlife management, invasive species research, and water quality monitoring.

Guest Blog: BioBase and Arctic charr habitat in Windermere, U.K.

By Dr. Ian J. Winfield and Joey van Rijn

The Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) is well appreciated as an important fisheries species in many northern areas of the world.  In addition, it is equally important to evolutionary biologists because of this species’ frequent development of ‘morphs’ or ‘types’ and their bearing on our understanding of mechanisms of speciation (Figure 1).  In the U.K., this fascinating fish is also recognised as having great nature conservation value.

Figure 1.  A female (top) and male (bottom) Arctic charr from Windermere, U.K.  Photo courtesy of the Center for Ecology and Hydrology)

Windermere is England’s largest lake and has been at the forefront of several areas of Arctic charr research for many decades, with the notable exception of studies of their spawning grounds (Figure 2).  Despite their long appreciated significance for the coexistence of autumn- and spring-spawning Arctic charr types, local spawning grounds have not been studied in any detail since their original brief description in the 1960s.  At that time, laborious and spatially-limited direct observations by divers showed that spawning requires the availability of gravel or other hard bottom habitat.  New information on these critical areas is needed by ecologists and evolutionary biologists and, more urgently, by fisheries and conservation organisations responsible for the management of Windermere.

Figure 2.  Breathtaking view of Windermere’s north basin; home to several spawning populations of Arctic charr.  Photo courtesy of Dr. Ian Winfield.

We are currently using the newly developed bottom hardness capability of ciBioBase to survey and characterise the spawning grounds of Arctic charr in Windermere.  Limited underwater video is being used for ground-truthing, but the combination of a Lowrance™ HDS-5 sounder with ciBioBase is allowing us to investigate the known spawning grounds with unprecedented speed (Figure 3).  For the first time, we have been able to document in detail the bathymetry and bottom features of a long-monitored (for spawning fish) spawning ground just north of the island of North Thompson Holme in the lake’s north basin.  ciBioBase is also enabling us to examine other known spawning grounds in Windermere and to expand our coverage to other potential areas previously unstudied.

Figure 3. An example ciBioBase output of bottom composition on and around the Arctic charr spawning ground of North Thompson Holme in the north basin of Windermere

The rapidity of the field component of hydroacoustic surveys is well known.  ciBioBase now offers us a similarly fast method of hydroacoustic data analysis for key environmental characteristics in relation to the spawning of Arctic charr.  This new approach helps us to dramatically increase our return on investment and also allows us to review results within hours of coming off the water, leading in some cases to us adapting our field plans on the basis of initial results.

Dr. Ian J Winfield is a Freshwater Ecologist at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in Lancaster, U.K.  He has over 30 years of research experience in fish and fisheries ecology, hydroacoustics, and lake ecosystem assessment and management.  Dr. Winfield sits on several regional, national and international advisory boards and is the current President of the Fisheries Society of the British Isles (FSBI).

Joey van Rijn is an undergraduate student currently following a BSc. degree course in Applied Biology at the University of Applied sciences, HAS Den Bosch, in the Netherlands. He is experienced in ecological and particularly phenological research including work on temperature-induced differences between urban and rural areas in the timing of blossoming and leaf unfolding in shrubs.  He has also been involved with the development of fish ways for standing waters in the Netherlands. Joey is currently undertaking a research internship at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in Lancaster, U.K., where his research mainly focuses on using hydroacoustics to investigate Arctic charr spawning grounds in Windermere.

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