As part of the RESCuE project, researchers measure the environmental, phenological and spectral values of a mangrove forest to determine how the mangrove ecosystem is changing and how best to proceed with restoration efforts.
To determine how the mangrove ecosystem is changing, given the harsh environments that are likely to be encountered, the project team had previously been developing and testing complex wired sensors that have subsequently been replaced with a more robust wireless alternative.
Project scientists have installed a system for testing phenology and Normalized Differential Vegetation Index (NDVI) monitoring at the study site in Thailand’s Trat Province. The data transmission capability (as obtained from the sensors), to a cloud storage facility is being tested. The proposed system offers decreasing costs of ownership, the engineering of increasingly smaller sensing devices, is 100% solar powered, bluetooth enabled, while also making use of cloud data storage, and advanced digital circuitry requiring less power and possessing multifunction sensor nodes. The project team aims to install a fully automated mangrove monitoring system by March 2019, which will include a wireless Field Router, integrating a network of in-situhigh-resolution cameras that are linked to a NDVI, the photochemical reflectance index (PRI), and HYDROS- 21 and ATMOS-41 packages 12 weather sensors. The proposed monitoring system is the first of its kind, monitoring the effects of the environmental factors on the mangrove ecosystem.