Cooperative Agreement for affiliated Partner with the Great Lakes Northern Forests Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU)

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is seeking a cooperative partner to assist with research on the Great Lakes fisheries. The primary goal of the project is to develop high-resolution maps of habitats that can be used to support ongoing studies of the role of habitat in fish production. The successful partner will work collaboratively with USGS scientists to develop software and manuscripts for automated habitat and geologic substrate mapping, generate dense point clouds, DEMs, and orthomosaics from USGS autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) imagery, and quantify 3D benthic habitat structure. Key objectives of the project include: * Developing and publishing software and a manuscript for automated habitat and geologic substrate mapping in imagery * Developing semi-automated workflows for automated generation of dense point clouds, DEMs, and orthomosaics from USGS AUV imagery * Developing data pipeline(s) compatible with USGS high-performance computing (HPC) systems for ingesting raw AUV imagery and writing out photogrammetry products * Exploring approaches to refine geospatial location information for AUVs from imagery * Quantifying 3D benthic habitat structure, with specific focus on factors needed by economic fisheries, from photogrammetry products * Assisting with data collection and processing of annual fish surveys and benthic mapping ground-truthing projects.