During this summer, AquaBiota surveyed the Baltic Proper’s bottoms with dropvideo in no less than 1382 stations. The surveys was commissioned by the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management (SWaM) and the county administrative board of Gävleborg for the purpose of producing maps of biological components for the entire Swedish coast. The Gävleborg survey also aims to produce information for monitoring and suggestions of new marine protected areas.
The used method means that the dropvideo films are analysed back in the office rather than directly in the boat. The videos are around 60 seconds long and each video takes around 20 minutes to analyse. Videos filmed at sites with lots of vegetation takes longer to analyse than sites with bare substrate.
Each video is analysed at 10 randomised stops in the video, where 10 points on the screen are interpreted to get a measure of the variety of species. Species occurring outside of these points are also registered. The substrate is also interpreted for each of these points, where the type of hardbottom and softbottom is registered. An example of the variety of substrate and vegetation within an area is portrayed in tre videos, all of which were filmed in the county of Kalmar.
Sand, rocks and boulders with bladder wrack and filamentous red algae.
A flatfish swims above boulders and rocks covered with filamentous red algae.
Softbottom sediments stirred up by the dropvideo equipment.