Unlocking the value of a blue economy with a revolutionary Underwater Satellite to promote the sustainable use of our ocean’s resources

Project Information

BLUESURVEY

Grant agreement ID: 190175727

DOI

10.3030/190175727

Project closed

EC signature date 3 August 2022

Start date 1 May 2022

End date 30 April 2024

Funded under

• The European Innovation Council (EIC)

Total cost

€ 3 561 500,00

EU contribution

€ 2 493 050,00

Coordinated by

PLANBLUE GMBH
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - BLUESURVEY (Unlocking the value of a blue economy with a revolutionary Underwater Satellite to promote the sustainable use of our ocean’s resources)

Reporting period: 2023-05-01 to 2024-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

PlanBlue is revolutionizing the blue carbon industry and nature-based climate solutions with its underwater geo-spatial technology. Focusing on seagrass meadows and offshore wind projects for now, we accelerate the protection of marine ecosystems by providing fast, credible, and accurate data. Despite seagrass's potential as a carbon sink, it remains under-utilized due to a lack of detailed information. PlanBlue aims to fill this gap by offering accurate and cost-effective data, challenging the undervaluation of the ocean floor's potential in combating climate change. Our DiveRay technology surpasses traditional monitoring methods like 'coring', covering large transects efficiently and reducing processing time to just 24 hours. Moreover, our AI-powered data processing addresses the lack of biodiversity data in assessing offshore wind projects, offering scientifically reliable information to stakeholders. With standardized methodologies and innovative technology, PlanBlue is paving the way for sustainable marine management.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Since its inception in 2017, planblue has achieved several technological innovations critical to the final goal of providing seafloor data. The most obvious innovation is the use of the hyperspectral camera. Though hyperspectral imaging was first developed by NASA in the mid-1980s, planblue is the first organization to attempt to use a hyperspectral camera to monitor the seafloor. While traditional RGB cameras are limited to viewing wavelengths of light between 380 and 700 nanometers, the hyperspectral camera employed by the DiveRay can observe wavelengths of light between 400 and 1,000 nanometers. This increased range provides exclusive access to data which is critical for monitoring the extent, density and health of seagrass meadows, as well as how much carbon is being stored in them.

Employing the hyperspectral data underwater has not come without challenges. The primary obstacle to successful Underwater Hyperspectral Imaging (UHI) is distortion introduced by light traveling through the water column. While correcting for light attenuation through air is well-understood, correcting for the attenuation through a water column is a much more complicated undertaking. The main cause of difficulty is that different wavelengths of light are filtered at different rates as they travel through the water. Adding to this difficulty is that the amount of filtering can change based on the conditions in the water column. This means that things can change color depending not on any inherent characteristics, but on the properties of the water column.

As planblue has been able to gather data at many different sites in myriad conditions, we have been able to make a lot of progress in correcting for the distortions introduced by the water column. This is a critical piece to ensure that the DiveRay is measuring seagrass, and not the conditions of the surrounding water.

Another critical technology developed for the DiveRay is a precise underwater navigation system. This navigation system allows the DiveRay to precisely track its location as it moves through the water. Combined with initial GPS information taken at the start of data collection, this system allows the DiveRay to know where on Earth it is at any given moment with a high degree of precision. This is a critical piece of technology as it allows planblue to accurately locate data gathered to specific locations on earth. This location data allows the DiveRay to produce advanced maps of the seafloor, overlaying data gathered from the hyperspectral camera to create a map of contextualized, georeferenced data.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The largest potential impact, by far, of planblue’s DiveRay system is in enabling the artificial creation of seagrass meadows. Though one can currently, in theory, make a profit by selling carbon credits sequestered by an artificially created seagrass meadow, there exist significant practical challenges which prevent this from being a profitable enterprise. The largest obstacle which stands in the way is Verification and Validation: Once you have grown a seagrass meadow, how can you tell how much carbon you have sequestered? Historically, the process of coring described in the previous section was the only way to verify carbon sequestration and thus enable the sale of carbon credits. This process, however, is time-consuming, inaccurate and, most importantly, costly.

This reduction in input cost stands to be a drastic game-changer in the calculus of creating seagrass meadows. Where once, the cost of verification and validation was prohibitive, planblue has created a way to vastly reduce those costs and make artificial seagrass meadows a commercially viable enterprise.