Surfgrass Monitoring at the Hewatt Transect Line

In this research study, we collected data with a height of 7 meters from the 60 meter Hewatt Transect Line in Pacific Grove, California using both DJI Phantom and DJI Mavic drones. We focused on collecting the average percent coverage of surfgrass from aerial imagery via drones and digital photo quadrats. Photos were taken every half meter and compiled into Pix4Dmapper to create a 2D model from which we created our 30 digital photo quadrats used for both automated and manual approaches. Using ArcMap and Microsoft Excel we were able to collect the average percent coverage of surfgrass with both methods to run our statistical analysis. For our statistics, we ran a two-sample t.test and found our p-value which gave us a t statistic of 0.52, t critical two-tail value of 2.00, and a p-value of 0.60. Our results showed that there was no statistically significant difference between either methodology. This shows us that both drones and quadrats are collecting the same amount of data with the only difference being that drones are collecting it much faster. With coastal ecosystems at risk due to disturbances, drones allow scientists to capture changes in the ecosystem and work towards more efficient conservation policies.