I used to work in remote sensing in a past life. I don’t have much to say about the science of measuring water quality, but I do want to comment on the data collection question.
You mention satellites and drones. If you can get the info you need from existing satellite imagery that’s great. To the extent that you need something more, I can recommend using manned aircraft over drones.
The world is well set-up for pilots to fly small aircraft. The type of drone you would need to cover a large area would have to be a very autonomous, fixed-wing aircraft. You don’t need this. You can contract a pilot & plane for hundreds of $s an hour and cover a whole lot of ground per hour. I would bet you could survey the whole of India’s fish farms annually for less than a single FTE in a western country working on drones.
Once you realize this, you might start thinking about other approaches than visible light. Can you identify substances that shouldn’t be present in a humane fish farm and measure them with a spectrometer mounted on an aircraft?
Replying because I could have sworn someone somewhere in EA mentioned free/cheap (?) flights for NGOs for this kind of thing; I think the example they gave was collaborating with documentary filmmakers to get shots from the air (possibly rainforests, in view of environmental issues?) I mention this because I can’t find the details, but maybe someone else has heard of this?
I think you might refer to SouthWings? Someone shared it on Hive a while ago, saying
”I wanted to let you know about an organization, SouthWings, that offers small airplane flights to activists and organizations in 15 U.S. states (mainly in the Southeast) - they primarily focus on helping orgs document environmental pollution from the air but I’m sure would be happy to work with animal advocates too. I found this service incredibly helpful for my documentary, The Smell of Money, in which we show factory farm pollution captured from a plane.”
Yes, thank you! Turns out they’re US-based but they may be better connected with other orgs/people who could offer similar service in Fish Welfare Initiative’s regions?
I used to work in remote sensing in a past life. I don’t have much to say about the science of measuring water quality, but I do want to comment on the data collection question.
You mention satellites and drones. If you can get the info you need from existing satellite imagery that’s great. To the extent that you need something more, I can recommend using manned aircraft over drones.
The world is well set-up for pilots to fly small aircraft. The type of drone you would need to cover a large area would have to be a very autonomous, fixed-wing aircraft. You don’t need this. You can contract a pilot & plane for hundreds of $s an hour and cover a whole lot of ground per hour. I would bet you could survey the whole of India’s fish farms annually for less than a single FTE in a western country working on drones.
Once you realize this, you might start thinking about other approaches than visible light. Can you identify substances that shouldn’t be present in a humane fish farm and measure them with a spectrometer mounted on an aircraft?
Replying because I could have sworn someone somewhere in EA mentioned free/cheap (?) flights for NGOs for this kind of thing; I think the example they gave was collaborating with documentary filmmakers to get shots from the air (possibly rainforests, in view of environmental issues?) I mention this because I can’t find the details, but maybe someone else has heard of this?
I think you might refer to SouthWings? Someone shared it on Hive a while ago, saying
”I wanted to let you know about an organization, SouthWings, that offers small airplane flights to activists and organizations in 15 U.S. states (mainly in the Southeast) - they primarily focus on helping orgs document environmental pollution from the air but I’m sure would be happy to work with animal advocates too. I found this service incredibly helpful for my documentary, The Smell of Money, in which we show factory farm pollution captured from a plane.”
Yes, thank you! Turns out they’re US-based but they may be better connected with other orgs/people who could offer similar service in Fish Welfare Initiative’s regions?