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Using Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) to Assess Oyster Reefs to Inform Management and Restoration

Using Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) to Assess Oyster Reefs to Inform Management and Restoration

Tue, Mar 18 2025, 3 - 4pm

Speaker(s): Peter Kingsley-Smith, Brandon Puckett, and Justin Ridge

Location: Webinar


In the southeastern U.S., intertidal oyster (Crassostrea virginica) reefs are primarily managed by state agencies in support of recreational and commercial fisheries, as well as for their ecosystem services. Oyster resource managers and NERR staff often rely on conventional on-the-ground monitoring approaches to inform management and restoration decisions, but these approaches have limitations in that they are time consuming and are of limited spatial scale. In response to users' needs for rapid, standardized and quantitative measures to assess reef condition – which directs management and restoration actions – this project evaluated uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) as a tool for measuring reef changes within five National Estuarine Research Reserves (NERRs) from North Carolina to Florida. The imagery analysis workflows developed in partnership with oyster resource managers provide quantitative measures of reef structural and demographic metrics and, importantly, changes to those metrics in response to natural and anthropogenic factors. Join this webinar to learn more about this enhanced technical capacity for conducting UAS-based oyster reef assessments.

Speakers:

peter kingsley-smith

Peter Kingsley-Smith, South Carolina Department of Natural Resources

Dr. Kingsley-Smith has managed the Shellfish Research Section at the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources’ Marine Resources Research Institute (MRRI) in Charleston, SC since 2008. His research team conducts a diverse array of research and monitoring projects related to both molluscan and crustacean shellfish species of recreational, commercial and ecological importance. Advancing our understanding of the performance of living shorelines and facilitating their adoption have been notable achievements of the MRRI research team more broadly in recent years.

brandon puckett

Brandon Puckett, NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science

Dr. Puckett is a research biologist in the Coastal Resilience, Restoration and Assessment Branch. His research interests, broadly speaking, center around the ecology of coastal habitats—focusing primarily on oyster reefs, tidal wetlands, and, to a lesser degree, seagrasses. Puckett’s recent research has focused on: 1) developing decision-support tools to inform oyster restoration, 2) evaluating the ability of nature-based solutions to enhance coastal ecosystem and community resilience, 3) applying remote sensing technology (namely drones) to monitor and assess wetlands and oyster reefs.

justin ridge

Justin Ridge, North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve

Dr. Ridge has been the Research Coordinator for the North Carolina NERR since the beginning of 2023. He is experienced piloting a range of UAS and developing remote sensing techniques for extracting ecologically relevant data from coastal habitats to assess ecosystems. Through this project and others, he has provided technical guidance on mission planning, assisted with UAS data acquisition and protocol development, and image analysis. He has been conducting oyster research for over 10 years.

Project contributors:

  • Whitney Jenkins (Collaborative Lead), North Carolina NERR
  • Gary Sundin (Co-technical Lead), South Carolina Department of Natural Resources
  • Dan Bowling, North Carolina State University and NOAA Margaret A. Davidson Fellow at NCNERR
  • Allix North, Florida Department of Environmental Protection
  • Laura Sánchez, South Carolina Department of Natural Resources
  • Camille Steenrod, NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (CSS, Inc.)
  • Erik Smith, North Inlet- Winyah Bay NERR
  • Nikki Dix, Guana Tolomato Matanzas NERR
  • Rachel Guy, Sapelo Island NERR
  • Alyah Bennett, University of North Florida
  • Colby Peffer, Sapelo Island NERR
  • Lauren Faulk, South Carolina Department of Natural Resources
  • Josh Matheson, Duke University, MaRRS Lab
  • Lexi Mitchell, South Carolina Department of Natural Resources
  • Kerryanne Newman, North Carolina NERR