Digital Aerial Low Tide Survey and Validation Study at Morecambe Bay and Duddon Estuary SPA

About

Natural England awarded a contract to HIDEF AERIAL SURVEYING LIMITED for a digital aerial low tide survey and validation study at Morecambe Bay and Duddon Estuary Special Protection Area (SPA) in winter 2023/24.

The contract involved five tasks: designing and conducting a high-resolution digital aerial survey of the entire SPA at low tide; processing imagery and analysing data to provide population abundance estimates and spatial distribution maps of birds and marine mammals; designing and conducting a high-resolution digital aerial survey of specific sub-sites simultaneously with ground-based counts to validate the digital aerial survey method; processing imagery and analysing data for those sub-sites; and producing a single report with methods, results, and deliverables.

The contract value was AUD 40,106.