The Canyons MCZ DY200 drop camera & AUV data analysis

Overview

NOC and JNCC will conduct a survey aboard the RSS Discovery (DY200) to gather evidence to monitor The Canyons MCZ and inform assessment of condition of the designated features of the site. The Canyons MCZ is in the far south-west corner of the UK continental shelf and is unique within the context of England's largely shallow seas due to its depth, sea-bed topography and the coral features it contains. The designated features of The Canyons MCZ are listed in Table 1. More information on The Canyons MCZ can be found in the JNCC site information centre (https://jncc.gov.uk/our-work/the-canyons-mpa/). Table 1 Designated features of The Canyons MCZ Protected Feature Feature Type Deep-sea bed Broadscale marine habitat Cold-water coral reefs Marine habitat Coral gardens Marine habitat Sea-pen and burrowing megafauna communities Marine habitat JNCC has been invited to collect imagery and video data on an upcoming survey to the Canyons MCZ by the National Oceanographic Centre (NOC), aboard the RRS Discovery as part of the DY200 expedition. Figure 1 Location of The Canyons MCZ in the context of Marine Protected Areas proximal to the site with existing multibeam data from previous surveys to The Canyons MCZ from the MESH 2007, JC125 (2015) and JC237 (2022) surveys, and EMODnet bathymetry. 3. Project Aims JNCC requires the analysis of seabed imagery (stills and video) collected on the DY200 survey from the drop-down camera and Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV). As the survey has not been completed yet, estimates of still image numbers and video length have been provided. These numbers may be subject to change after the survey and will be discussed with the relevant contractor. Table 2 Estimated number of stills and video data to be analysed from DY200. Data type Quantity Drop camera video 50 hours video Drop camera stills 5,000 images AUV stills 1,000 images The following will be supplied to the successful contractor: • Access to BIIGLE project with all stills, video and label trees. o Please email the contacts for technical information (see page 1) if you would like to be added as a guest to the BIIGLE project to review the imagery. • Epibiota Quality Assurance Framework Proforma spreadsheets 4. Project Objectives 1. Analysis of stills and video taken with the drop-camera system 2. Filtering, processing and analysis of a subset of AUV imagery 3. Provide substrate and taxonomic image reference collections for each substrate type and taxon identified from imagery. 4. Produce a final analysis report including, at a minimum, sections detailing the methodology, results , and details of all QA work undertaken with any remedial action deemed necessary. The report should be no longer than 10,000 words including all tables and appendices and be provided electronically via email as a Microsoft Word document. 5. Produce a report comparing the ability of the AUV and the drop camera to identify the following deep-sea features (if present in the AUV data) and make recommendations on the most appropriate survey technique for these features. o Coral gardens o Seapen and burrowing megafauna o Deep Sea Sponge aggregations (if present in the data collected) 6. Create a subset of stills annotated in a way suitable to act as training data for artificial intelligence model training as described below The contractor must • Undertake the analysis as set out below and adhering to the NMBAQC Epibiota interpretation guidelines (Turner et al, 2016). Please note these guidelines are currently being updated by JNCC - the contractor must check with JNCC if the updated guidelines are available when the contract starts. • Use BIIGLE to annotate video and stills as described below. Alternative image annotation software may be used subject to agreement with the project officer. • Ensure that stills and video references used in analysis outputs are identical to those used in the naming of the original media to enable future reconciliation between data and media. I