Coastal and Marine Resources Project recognised by ESRI

2006-12-15

ESRI Inc, the industry leader in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), recently gave recognition to the innovative work being undertaken by the Coastal and Marine Resources Centre (CMRC) at University College Cork. A team of researchers from the Centre received the ESRI Award at the ECO-Imagine Conference in Genoa, Italy for their work in tracking seals using GIS technology. The team will now receive a copy of ESRI’s ArcGIS 9.2 software to assist their ongoing research.

Coastal areas play a vital role for most European countries from the ecological, economical and cultural point of view.  The CMRC’s innovative study on seal behavior at sea off the southwest of Ireland started earlier this year.  The project funded by the Marine Institute under the National Development Plan provides for the first time ever information on the movements and behaviour of seals in Irish waters.

The Irish team from the CMRC, led by Michelle Cronin working with world leading experts in marine mammal research, is using sophisticated tracking devices linked to a GIS to study the offshore movements and behaviour of seals. The tracking devices use a powerful GPS together with mobile phone technology to relay the information back to base. This information on where the seals have travelled to offshore, along with data on dive depths and duration, helps the research team determine the foraging or feeding behaviour of seals. Temperature and conductivity sensors provide ancillary data useful for investigating the haul-out behaviour of the seals.  Knowing how much time the seals spend ashore will help improve the accuracy of population assessments, as seals can only be counted when they come ashore.

Team member Iban Ameztoy, used ESRI technology to process the data from the tracking devices, the team now hopes to develop a map based visualisation which will display the tracks of the tagged seals via the Internet using Google Earth. “This is a great example of innovative scientific research being made accessible using Internet map technology. ESRI is happy to assist this team and we look forward to the results of their work being available to other researchers, the general public and even schools with an Internet connection.” Comments Eamonn Doyle, Chief Technology Officer, ESRI Ireland.