Aerial survey using a thermal sensor of the Grytviken/King Edward Point fur seal colony during the 2022/23 season, flight DPlus_109_45

Aerial survey using a thermal sensor of the Grytviken / King Edward Point fur seal colony during the 2022/23 season conducted using a RPAS (remotely piloted aerial system).

The aerial survey was conducted as part of the Darwin Plus (DPLUS) 109 project: Initiating Monitoring Support for the Government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Marine Protected Area (SGSSI-MPA) Research and Monitoring Plan for the purpose of establishing a baseline population estimate of key indicator species around South Georgia.

Dataset includes the original images and log files, the original RINEX GNSS (global navigation satellite system) base station files, the post-processed GNSS and imagery data, along with the resulting georeferenced DSM (digital surface model) and an orthorectified mosaic of the imagery.

This dataset is from flight number DPLUS_109_45 which was carried out on 2022-11-15.

This work was supported by the Overseas Territories Environment and Climate Fund under Grant Darwin Plus ref: DPLUS109: Initiating monitoring support for the SGSSI-MPA Research and Monitoring Plan. Funding for this work was also received from the UK Blue Belt fund through GSGSSI.

Date (Creation): 2025-10-23

Date (Revision): 2025-10-23

Date (Publication): 2025-10-23

Date (released): 2025-10-23

Edition: 1.0

Unique resource identifier: https://doi.org/10.5285/303d8002-712c-4979-b31b-54e421100def

Codespace: doi

Unique resource identifier: GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/02096

Codespace: https://data.bas.ac.uk/

Other citation details: Please cite this item as: Fenney, N., Hollyman, P., Coleman, J., Fox, A., Trathan, P., & Collins, M. (2025). Aerial survey using a thermal sensor of the Grytviken/King Edward Point fur seal colony during the 2022/23 season, flight DPlus_109_45 (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/303d8002-712c-4979-b31b-54e421100def

Credit: No credit.

Status: Completed

Point of contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
British Antarctic Survey	Fenney, Nathan		Author
Bangor University	Hollyman, Philip		Author
British Antarctic Survey	Coleman, Jamie		Author
British Antarctic Survey	Fox, Adrian		Author
British Antarctic Survey	Trathan, Philip		Author
British Antarctic Survey	Collins, Martin		Author
NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre		PDCServiceDesk@bas.ac.uk	Point of contact

Maintenance and update frequency: As needed

Maintenance note: Completed

Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Science Keywords

Theme

Fur seal
South Georgia
aerial survey
digital surface model
drone
orthorectified mosaic
thermal

Place

King Edward Point South Georgia Island
Grytviken South Georgia Island

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

Oceanographic geographical features

Access constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: public access limited according to Article 13(1)(e) of the INSPIRE Directive

Use constraints: License

Other constraints: Open Government Licence v3.0

Use constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: This data is governed by the NERC Data Policy: https://www.ukri.org/who-we-are/nerc/our-policies-and-standards/nerc-data-policy/

Use constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: and supplied under Open Government Licence v.3 ().

Use constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Data under embargo until 31/12/2025.

Unique resource identifier: url

Codespace: url

Association Type: Cross reference

Spatial representation type: Text, table

Language: English

Character set: UTF8

Topic category

Biota
Imagery base maps earth cover

Begin date: 2022-11-15

End date: 2022-11-15

Supplemental Information: It is recommended that careful attention be paid to the contents of any data, and that the author be contacted with any questions regarding appropriate use. If you find any errors or omissions, please report them to polardatacentre@bas.ac.uk.

Title: European Petroleum Survey Group (EPSG) Geodetic Parameter Registry

Date (Publication): 2008-11-12

Cited responsible party

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
European Petroleum Survey Group		EPSGadministrator@iogp.org	Publisher

Unique resource identifier: urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::3031

Version: 6.18.3

Distributor

Distributor contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre		PDCServiceDesk@bas.ac.uk	Distributor

Units of distribution: bytes

Transfer size: 1

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link	http://ramadda.data.bas.ac.uk/repository/entry/show?entryid=303d8002-712c-4979-b31b-54e421100def	Get Data

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Statement: Methodology:

Data collection:

Aerial survey conducted using a RPAS (AgEagle eBee X) equipped with a AgEagle Duet T sensor. The Duet T sensor combined an RGB, 20 megapixel (MPx) S.O.D.A. (Sensor for Obstacle Detection and Avoidance) with a 640 x 512 Px thermal FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) sensor for simultaneous thermal and RGB image collection. The aerial survey consisted of a single flight collecting overlapping imagery of the target area, with a minimum forward overlap of 80% and a side overlap of 60% (based on the specifications of the thermal sensor).Within the flight, five smaller discrete surveys were undertaken, with a single survey at KEP, followed by four repeat surveys of the same area at Grytviken. The KEP survey was conducted with a thermal Ground Sample Distance (GSD) of 10 cm, while the four repeat surveys at Grytviken were at four different GSD resolutions (8, 10, 12 and 14 cm).

During the aerial surveys a geodetic Trimble GNSS base station receiver collected data.

Post flight processing:

Precise point positioning (PPP) was undertaken using the online Canadian Spatial Reference System PPP tool to generate the position of the base station during the survey and which was then used to process the eBee X's onboard GNSS receiver using post-processed kinematic (PPK) processing to improve the accuracy of the camera centres captured during flight.

Photogrammetry / final outputs:

The photogrammetry and orthorectification workflows were undertaken in Pix4D (version 4.7.5.). The photogrammetry workflow used the higher resolution RGB imagery to derive the position and orientation of both the RGB and thermal sensors during each image capture (x, y, z, omega, phi and kappa (or roll, pitch, yaw)). For each discrete survey, this information was then used to derive a series of dense 3D point clouds of the surface from the RGB images and from which a DSM (digital surface model) and a triangulated mesh could be created. The triangulated meshes were then used to orthorectify both the RGB and thermal imagery, removing camera perspective and terrain distortions, resulting in a series of geometrically corrected, georeferenced orthorectified image mosaics.

Please refer to Coleman et al. for a more detailed description of the data collection and post processing methodologies.

Data quality:

PPP (precise point positioning) processing accuracy is reported in the CSRS (Canadian Spatial Reference System) PPP processing report (.pdf).

PPK (post-processed kinematic) processing accuracy (by image) is reported in the eMotion camera centre geoinfo file (.txt).

Metadata

File identifier: 303d8002-712c-4979-b31b-54e421100def XML

Metadata language: English

Character set: UTF8

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Hierarchy level name: dataset

Date stamp: 2025-10-23

Metadata standard name: ISO 19115 Geographic Information - Metadata

Metadata standard version: ISO 19115:2003(E)

Metadata author

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre		polardatacentre@bas.ac.uk	Point of contact

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