Autonomous surveying technologies to enhance habitat characterization, anthropogenic impact assessment, and DTO capabilities

Coastal marine habitats are biologically diverse and host fundamental ecosystems that provide essential ecosystem services (e.g., climate regulation, food security, and carbon sequestration). Despite their importance, these habitats face increasing threats from cumulative local pressures (e.g., habitat degradation, overexploitation, and pollution) as well as climate change.

In the last decade, new autonomous surveying technologies have been increasingly adopted for coastal marine monitoring and research due to their high efficiency and cost-effectiveness. These innovative tools enable continuous, high-resolution data collection and facilitate the assessment of often inaccessible marine areas. Moreover, the integration of autonomous surveying platforms into observing systems provides more comprehensive and timely insights into ocean dynamics in response to environmental changes.

Overall, innovative autonomous surveying technologies offer new opportunities to deepen knowledge of coastal habitat characteristics and ecosystem functioning through the detailed acquisition of seabed features (e.g., seawater depth, seafloor morphology, vegetation height and coverage) and physicochemical variables of seawater (e.g., temperature, salinity). These technologies help to improve understanding of ecosystem responses to anthropogenic pressures and climate change and represent an efficient tool for enhancing the capabilities of the Digital Twin Ocean (DTO).

In this work, we present results from recent case studies in which these technologies were applied to coastal areas of northern Lazio (Italy) to assess the effects of anthropogenic activities and climate change on seagrass and reef habitats, as well as to support the validation and calibration of numerical models and the development of new AI technologies.