PRE2022 3 Group7/interviews

Interviews carried out by group 7

Questions

The goal of the questions given are indicated in italics.

1. In your specific field of research, how is data collected? (Finding the state of the art of data collection)
2. What aspects do you prefer about this method of data collecting? (Look for the desires and preferences of researchers, the first party stake holders)
3. What aspects do you think could be improved about this method of data collecting? (Same as Q.2 :Look for the desires and preferences of researchers, the first party stake holders)
4. Do you feel there is a dimension of sorts which is missing from your data (for example the current depth, time or air temperature)? (Looking for possible technical challenges that engineers could improve)
5. Is the data you use for research obtained in real time? If so, is this beneficial for your research or is it unnecessary? If not, would it improve your research? (Would the most important aspect of the technical product be beneificial)
6. For how big of an area would one buoy be able to sense and gain representable/useful data? (To get an idea of how useful/representable our data would be and In which scales buoys need to be placed to get accurate data regarding costs)
7. Our idea now is a buoy which consists mainly of a base and a diver (where the sensors are connected to) which are connected via a wire. The base is mounted to an anchor on the ocean floor. The diver can dive down along the anchor chain to obtain the relevant data and send this to the base which can then send it to the researcher, data is thus sent in real time and the specific depth is known. What are your initial thoughts on our idea? (Looking for problems that we have overseen due to unknown issues regarding aspects of the ocean or in general)
8. Which aspects do you like about our idea and what do you think can be improved or added in a general sense? (Same as Q.7: Looking for problems that we have overseen due to unknown issues regarding aspects of the ocean or in general)
9. Now some more questions about coral reefs: Do you think that how data is obtained on coral reefs is incomplete? If so, what do you think is missing? (Looking for the state of the art regarding coral reef data)
10. How much money would you spend on using this type of buoy (without sensors)? If your research is subsidised by a government or university, how much would they invest in this? (Looking for the demands of the stakeholders)
11. Our design now includes an anchor which lays on the ocean floor. Is this a sufficient solution to stabilise the buoy, i.e. could the anchor damage the coral in any way as for the chain? (This are technical problems that we want to avoid as engineers but in cooperation with the researchers that know a lot about the ocean and issues that could arise)
12. Do you have any final comments or opinions you would like to mention about coral reefs, our idea or anything we may have missed? (Looking for additions that we did not come up with yet.

Answers

Person 1

Person 1 of this interview is a researcher from the university of Groningen. She works within the disciplines of Ecology, Marine biology and evolutionary biology. She has an expertise in the diversity of coral reefs. She does indicate on forehand of answering our questions that she is not sure that her type of research is relevant for this project of intelligent buoys.

1. Diving/snorkeling on reefs, down to ca. 30 meters. We collect faunal data by hand (measurements, counts), take photographs and collect specimens for further research.
2. We collect data on specific species/ taxa. Our approach minimise damage to the reefs, and is very focused in approach to optimise the data collection in the limited time we have.
3. I don't the data collecting can really be improved, most optimisation options are in the data processing steps (vouchers, genetics, photographs). The only think I am imagine is an easier way to connect the data points and photographs / specimens to each other to minimise human error with data entering.
4. Depth is added by means of a dive computer, time and air are not relevant for my work.
5. No, that is unnecessary for my work. Time scales that I am interested in are either evolutionary (>2 Mya) or seasonal.
6. I guess that will depend on the type of question. Probably smaller than you think.
7. You are assuming that data is only collected along a depth gradient, but normally (at least in my research) data is mostly collected along the reef (hence we swim horizontally, not vertically).
8. Your idea is rather static and will allow for data collection without a diver present. If you can add e.g. oxygen measurements, one could employ the buoy and let it collect data by itself?
9. In my specific field, no not really. For other research field this question is too general to answer I am afraid.
10. There is no real link to my research, hence I would not invest in it. A university also wouldn't, this would have to be funded by grants. A few thousand euros max (with sensors) I would say.
11. On many coral reefs you will absolutely not get permission to throw down anchors as they are very damaging for reefs. More and more sites have permanent buoys to anchor boats. Ideally I would use reef hooks or some kind of rope to attach it myself by diving.
12. Researcher have different needs, I think flexibility in sensor type will be important (pH, oxygen, water velocity) etc

Summary:

According to here type of research, data collection is done by divers who work as efficient as possible to collect data that they need on forehand. Also by looking at photographs. Here she suggest that data processing of photographs could be more efficient. Time dependent data, an general aspect of the intelligent buoys isn't relevant for her type of research. Furthermore she suggest to not only use data on depth gradient but horizontally.

Q.8-Q.10 are hard to answer because it is not applicable for her type of research as mentioned on forehand. T

Then she mentions anchors can not be thrown down as this is very damaging reefs. She also suggests reef hooks or ropes.

Finally she mentions flexibility in the type of sensors for collecting data is useful for researchers.

The most important point of critic applicable to our project are:

1. Horizontal data measuring
2. Anchor problem

We will disregard the first problem as we will mostly be focussing on the concentrations of the water instead of pictures of coral. Additionally, for one autonomous system that is meausuring we will mostly focussing on the Y-axis but deploying more of this system will provide us information about the different places on the horizontal as well.

The second problem is something we want to further investigate and look at the possible solutions without damaging the coral reef.