Automatic detection and classification of marine biogenic habitats, species, and substrates

Canada works towards designating 30% of our national waters as Marine Protected Area (MPA) by 2030. The need to collect baseline information and monitor such a huge territory, which is equivalent to the area covered by Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia altogether, will be next to impossible without a paradigm shift in the way field observation data are processed. We propose a platform for automatic classification of bedrock and species for habitat classification, coastal monitoring, and resource assessments. During the Lab2Market program, our overarching goal is to develop an Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered software that classifies > 30 features including species and types of habitat in the coastal subtidal zone of the Atlantic Coast of Nova Scotia.

Faculty Supervisor:

Anna Metaxas

Student:

Masoud Aali

Partner:

Springboard Atlantic

Discipline:

Environmental sciences

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Dalhousie University