About This Project

Environmental sensors are vital in marine science, measuring conductivity, temperature and depth allows us to understand distribution or movement of organisms and track the effects of climate change. We are limited by cost, reliability and scarcity of environmental sensors in countries we work in. We can build and maintain our own devices at a tenth of the cost of commercial units. We will use these to gather data needed to support marine megafauna conservation.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

Conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD) are 3 of the most important measurable physical properties of the oceans as they strongly influence abundance, distribution and movement patterns of sharks, rays, fish and sea turtles. Commercial CTD sensors are expensive and difficult to access and maintain in lower income nations. It is important to understand how these environmental variables are affected by climate change as they may the affect habitat suitability of a range of marine species that are important for food and economic security of local communities. Devices based on OpenCTD gather this data at a cost of less than 20% of a commercial CTD recorder.

What is the significance of this project?

Advances and increased access to technology, principally the emergence of the open source community, have made affordable sensors and single board computers available. OpenCTD, a project developed and supported by Oceanography for Everyone, provides an open access blueprint to construct relatively simple and affordable devices which cost less than 20% of a commercial CTD recorder, are user-built, field-repairable and easy to deploy. These data will, when combined with our other methodology, give us more complete data that can be then used to inform fishers shared with dependent communities, decision makers and the scientific community in the low and middle income countries where we are based. Data and CTD plans will be shared with our regional partners.

What are the goals of the project?

Our goal is to construct six CTD units, we will be deploying as part of our regular marine megafauna monitoring work in Belize, Honduras, Panama, Cabo Verde, and Mexico. An additional CTD will be made to survive to 350 m in support of our deepwater megafauna research. We previously used an Ocean Solutions Challenge Grant to develop and deploy deepwater hydrophones and cameras in Honduras and Belize. We look forward to sharing the building and deploying of the CTDs with you and filling the data gap for scientists, communities, and decision makers to better advise on the conservation of sharks, rays, sea turtles, and large finfish.