Software and idea sharing for the IRA-EDA Active Acoustics Strategic Initiative
Revolutionize and expand opportunities for active acoustic data in ecosystem-based fisheries science and management through a NOAA-wide program that advances analytical methods for multi-disciplinary data collected from innovative platforms.
The Active Acoustics Strategic Initiative (AA-SI) is a NOAA-Fisheries Essential Data Acquisition (EDA) project funded by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). It is a three-year project, with funding until the end of fiscal year 2026.
Active acoustics here refers to multi-frequency and wide-bandwidth echosounders that span frequency spectra from kHz to mHz and data-processing and analytical software used to assess fish and zooplankton populations for fisheries research and management. Echosounders transmit pulses of sound into the ocean and record frequency-dependent echoes from marine organisms that are used to classify the echoes to taxa or species, map their distributions, and estimate abundances. Classification is done by manual or automated segmentation and attribution and may include ancillary information to enhance accuracy. Development of classification approaches is often stifled by large data volumes, continual improvements in processing wide-bandwidth and low-frequency acoustic data, and uncertainty in relationships with habitat factors.
NOAA collects active acoustic data from an increasingly diverse number of crewed and uncrewed platforms such as Fisheries Survey Vessels, autonomous surface and underwater vehicles, moorings, and landers. Compared to data from multi-frequency echosounders, wide-bandwidth echosounder data are much more voluminous and provide higher resolution frequency-response information, but also present challenges for data storage and analysis. Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and statistical techniques comprise advanced analytical methods that are needed to significantly accelerate automated echo classification through the combination of high-resolution echosounder, biological, and habitat data.
The principal goal of this NOAA-wide program is to advance active acoustic data acquisition, storage, and analytical capacity at all Fisheries Science Centers (FSCs) to enable accurate automated classification of echoes from most or all assessed species and their predators and prey, as well as to develop novel survey designs for stock and ecosystem assessment purposes. The analytical tools will be applicable to multi-disciplinary data sent from collection platforms to a cloud server, or directly aboard the data collection platforms. These tools will greatly expedite data processing, improve classification accuracy, expand applicability of acoustic data, promote adaptive sampling, and facilitate further and faster collaborative development. The proposed activities will be conducted on a national level to leverage resources and expertise across FSCs, NOAA, academic institutions and commercial entities and to ensure parity in expertise and support among all FSCs.
Revolutionizing echo classification is our primary goal and the collection of activities contribute substantially to achieving this. Compiling validated data sets and developing cloud infrastructure are critical to the success of this SI. Ensuring high-bandwidth capacity at sea and testing and implementing the echo classification advancements using novel data collection opportunities are required for routine inclusion in stock assessment and ecosystem-based management.
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