Aim of the APIS (Aerial Photogrammetric Integrative Surveys) project was to test drone-based species and habitat mapping in the Wadden Sea National Park.
During the project we have
- carried out 68 drone flights,
- recorded more than 1000 seals (harbour and grey seals) and
- just under 36,000 breeding birds,
- mapped more than 350 hectares of mussel beds and seagrass meadows and
- documented almost 23 hours of bird behaviour during drone surveys.
The project was able to show that drone-based surveys can be a high-resolution, large-scale and, at the same time, low-impact alternative to traditional monitoring methods.
The combination of modern sensor technology, photogrammetry and artificial intelligence ensured efficient surveys and analyses of breeding birds and seals as well as mussel beds and seagrass meadows. The AI-assisted analysis of the images reached an accuracy of between 85 % and 98 %.
A huge thank you to our drone team, the University of Applied Sciences FH Westküste, the Friedrichskoog Seal Centre, the Wadden Sea Conservation Station, the Alfred Wegener Institute on the island of Sylt and the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park!
The project was a pilot project of UAM-InnoRegion-SH and was funded by Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space.
Please visit our project page and the pages of the UAM-InnoRegion-SH for further information about the project.