Project

Italian seas are home to a unique heritage of biodiversity in terms of species and habitats and are protected by EU conventions and directives. To preserve this richness effectively, monitoring activities are key to assess its state of health and evolution, and to enhance our current knowledge of natural processes and stress factors. Where this heritage is compromised, restoration projects can be undertaken, operations requiring the application of technical and scientific methods to ensure robust, reliable and cost-effective data collection.

Geomatics includes disciplines and techniques involving the collection, processing, analysis, visualisation and sharing of geographical data and information. The ensemble of these approaches can provide valuable support for marine habitat monitoring, in the form of: localization, navigation and mapping of the site of interest following autonomous or guided approaches; generation of digital twins (3D models) of the habitat at the required resolution and accuracy; extraction from the digital twins of statistically significant metrics to assess the time evolution; presentation and sharing of the results with both the scientific community and the general public to promote awareness of environmental protection issues.

MANATEE (Monitoring and mApping of mariNe hAbitat with inTegrated gEomatics technologiEs) will provide these monitoring solutions via the integration of underwater photogrammetry with auxiliary positioning and navigation techniques based on acoustic, pressure and inertial sensors. The developed approaches will be implemented in three complementary underwater vehicles, differing in cost, weight and portability, number and grade of navigation, positioning and 3D modelling sensors, and designed to cover habitats different for extension and depth. An observation class UUV (unmanned underwater vehicle), to a low-cost micro ROV (remotely operated vehicle), and a 3D surveying and modelling device for scuba divers, will be tested in a real-world experiment focusing on the restoration of a crustose coralline algae, Lithophyllum stictiforme.

The alga is an important habitat builder, which contributes to the creation and stabilisation of reefs and increases benthic diversity. The ability to measure the growth of the algae by a few mm/year will showcase the benefits and adaptability of the developed Geomatics approaches in real monitoring projects, demonstrating their measurement potential in a contactless and non-impacting way on the environment without requiring samples to be collected.

The results achieved will have a broader impact, extending beyond the boundaries of environmental monitoring to other sectors such as industrial facilities monitoring or archaeological applications.

PRIN 2022 (Progetti di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale) - Project code: 20224W98AA