Stay up to date on news and features about aquatic habitat mapping with BioBase
Ok. It’s long overdue. But, better late than never! Much to the delight of non-US users, now you can choose whether BioBase EcoSound outputs are in metric or imperial units.
Wish to change units of an already processed map?
If you processed a trip with one unit setting and wish to recontour the map in a different unit, simply change the unit in our Account Profile and then go back to the trip of interest and reprocess
What is EcoSat?
EcoSat delivers a one-of-it’s-kind semi-automated cloud processing of very high resolution satellite imagery to map nearshore vegetation and coastal benthic habitats. EcoSat uses the latest multi-spectral imagery from reputable providers such as Digital Globe (World View 2,3 and 4), Airbus Defence and Space (Pleiades), and ESA’s Sentinel program and industry standard image processing techniques. Sophisticated Amazon Web Service cloud infrastructure rapidly processes imagery, creates reports and imagery tiles, and delivers detailed habitat maps to user’s BioBase dashboard where it can be analyzed and shared. Average turnaround time from imagery tasking order to delivery of results is 60 days. The rapid and standard processing methods are allowing entities like the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to establish regular monitoring programs for emergent vegetation. The extremely long and expensive one-off nature of conventional remote sensing mapping projects using non-repeatable tailored techniques has prevented natural resource entities from assessing the degree that habitats are changing as a result of environmental stressors such as invasive species invasions and climate change.
Continue reading “Training EcoSat Vegetation Classifications: User tips”
BioBase is a powerful data collection and mapping tool for aquatic environments. To get the best results with BioBase – EcoSound, it is important to use proper hardware installation and data collection procedures. This post contains links to the resources that will help you get started with BioBase and get great data.
First, BioBase is only compatible with Lowrance and Simrad Sounders/Chartplotters. This blog offers helpful advice for which sonar to choose
Our quality control team reviews every uploaded trip and looks for glaring issues with the trip like evidence of a slanted transducer, signal loss, or poor signal quality. Its critically important that you have your transducer installed correctly. We recommend you take it to marina to have it professionally installed.
Our Quality Control Team may email you if they notice any significant issues with your trip, and suggest ways to fix the issue or ways to improve data quality before logging again. Waterbody boundary adjustment is part of the BioBase service but there will be a delay between when your trip is automatically processed and when Quality Control staff are able to adjust the boundary of your waterbody. Please allow one business day for quality control before finalizing or sharing your maps, or check the quality control review status by viewing a trip’s report.
If there is a quality control reviewer’s name on the report with comments, the trip has been reviewed. You can also see any comments that were not emailed to you on the report.
It is also important to keep your Lowrance software updated. Software updates can be found here. Outdated software can result in inaccurate or lost data!
Our YouTube channel has many helpful videos, including data editing tutorials.
This post gives an overview on how EcoSound works along with some answers to frequently asked questions that many new users have.
The EcoSound Quick Start Guide shows recommended settings to use while logging sonar. Print this guide and keep it on your survey boat.
The EcoSound Support and Resources page has links to the EcoSound Full Operator’s Guide as well as several tutorials, including guides for using EcoSound data in QGIS.
If you ever need any assistance, contact the BioBase support team at info@biobasemaps.com
Another FAQ we get is wondering if there are published studies using BioBase technology? There are many legacy applications on which the BioBase technology is based. Further, now that a sufficient passage of years has accumulated to support the research to publication cycle, we’re happy to share several BioBase-specific studies published in the peer-reviewed literature. We also cite some other key papers highlighting the use of consumer sonar technology for scientific research. This is far from an exhaustive list, especially with the growing body of references focusing on mapping with consumer side-scan. If there are good published papers you know of that are not on this list, please share in the comments.
Continue reading “Consumer Sonar for Bottom Mapping: Updated Reference List”
At conferences, we often encounter curious coordinators of citizen monitoring programs about how they could use automated consumer technologies to monitor aquatic habitats. When they learn what BioBase does, a frequent question is: “That sounds pretty cool and something we could certainly apply, who else is using BioBase for citizen science applications?”
In response, we always highlight the Prior Lake Spring Lake Watershed District (PLSLWD) in Minnesota USA. PLSLWD is a leader when it comes to leveraging the talents of volunteers, partners, and Lowrance and BioBase technology to implement a comprehensive, standardized aquatic plant monitoring program. To learn more about the PLSLWD’s program and implementation strategies, check out this report.
 |
| Schematic showing the collection of merged files collected by citizen volunteers. A PLSLWD intern coordinated efforts across multiple volunteers, informed citizens about desired travel routes, and even preloaded transect guides in their Lowrance Chartplotter for citizens to follow. |
 |
| Maps of Bottom Hardness (top), Bathymetry (middle), and Aquatic Vegetation Abundance (% of water column filled with vegetation or biovolume, Bottom) collected by citizens on Prior Lake with Lowrance Sounders/Chartplotters and processed automatically by BioBase Automated Lake Mapping System. |
Although BioBase EcoSound was originally developed for aquatic vegetation mapping in inland lakes, users along both US Coasts have helped us diversify its toolbox to now be a powerful coastal habitat mapping tool as well!
One of the biggest challenges of mapping coastal habitats is their tidal influence with depths changing harmonically based on the moon phase and other factors. Fortunately, however, widespread tide stations and large public databases of tide predictions allow for accurate and precise offsets to georeferenced and time-stamped sonar logs from Lowrance HDS or Elite units uploaded to BioBase EcoSound. BioBase EcoSound immediately queries the nearest tide station to your upload (up to 75 km) and adjusts your depth and seagrass or kelp biovolume to the Mean Lower Low Water (MLLW) datum every 5 minutes. Tidal statistics (Avg., start, stop, high, low,) are archived in your account for each trip.
Continue reading “BioBase EcoSound does Seagrass, Kelp, and Tides Too!”
A primary strength of BioBase EcoSound is its simplicity and that is reflected in the easy 3 step process of “Collect,” “Upload,” and “Analyze” (Figure 1).
 |
| Figure 1. The core process of EcoSound depicting the 3 Steps of “Collect,” “Upload,” and “Analyze.” |
But there are many strategies that users can employ that will ensure that they will get the best EcoSound outputs possible. We’ll focus on several questions under each of the three categories
Continue reading “BioBase 3 Step Process: Important Details!”
BioBase’s primary strength is an automated map creation engine designed to take thousands raw of data signals from your Lowrance and rapidly summarize them into informative maps. These maps have helped aquatic resource professionals throughout the globe make more informed aquatic management decisions.
But BioBase also creates maps that are rather pleasing to the eye and many have asked how they might be able to create customized digital or print maps for their clients. We offer two solutions that will help you create professional quality maps. First, we offer basic support of viewing and analyzing BioBase data in QGIS and have produced several do-it-yourself tutorials that are available in your BioBase Support & Resources. Second, we offer GIS Services to BioBase customers who lack expertise in GIS or the proper software licenses. Below we present a gallery of images from these projects. Identities and locations of projects have been changed or omitted to protect the privacy of the customers.
We’ll create a map for you!
Navico offers custom GIS services where interested customers fill out an order form specifying their needs. Navico GIS staff will transfer the appropriate BioBase data to ArcMap 10.x and any ancillary GIS shapefiles (e.g., sampling waypoints or other points of interest) and produce a custom-sized, high resolution digital map that you can have printed online or at a local print shop. Email us at info@biobasemaps.com to get print and pricing details.
 |
| Multiple BioBase maps can be combined into one map and exported as any image format and custom sized. Send us your logo and we’ll add it to the map. |
 |
| Request transparency to the image to show floating leaf vegetation in the aerial imagery. |
 |
| Send us points of interest to add to the map. In this case, navigation hazards in front of a land owner’s property |
 |
| Send us sediment depth point data and if sufficient, we’ll interpolate and create a sediment depth map (left) and pare it with other BioBase maps (in this case aquatic vegetation biovolume). |
 |
| Would you like to add water body statistics? We’ll add full lake summaries or summaries by depth. You tell us the contour interval and units. |
 |
| An example where a customer desired to simulate the pond depth at a significantly higher water elevation than when mapped with BioBase. Customer used survey-grade GPS to generate precise land elevation data while walking along the soon-to-be-inundated shore. Customer submitted these point elevation data to Navico along with a high-water shoreline for incorporation into the lake map. |
Producing professional-quality aquatic maps has never been easier with Lowrance and BioBase mapping technologies, but there are several strategies that can help you optimize your time on the water and produce the best possible map output:
The transducer connected to your Lowrance echosounder plays a critical role in producing quality map outputs. Fortunately, the mechanics of producing quality hydroacoustic signals has been honed by 57 years of research and development by engineers at Lowrance. Still, users play an important role in optimizing outputs by selecting the correct transducer and installing it correctly
Continue reading “Choosing and Installing your Lowrance Transducer”
