UAV photogrammetry and remote sensing for coastal biodiversity and habitat conservation

Abstract

Coastal ecosystems support high biological diversity while experiencing rapid change caused by shoreline dynamics, sea-level rise, extreme events, pollution, urban development, and intensive resource use. Conventional field surveys provide essential ecological observations but often lack the spatial extent or repetition needed to describe heterogeneous and short-lived coastal conditions. This review evaluates how uncrewed aerial vehicle photogrammetry and remote sensing can support habitat assessment, species monitoring, restoration, and conservation decisions. A structured narrative synthesis was undertaken across studies on image-based mapping, multispectral and thermal observation, laser scanning, direct georeferencing, automated classification, and environmental change detection. The evidence shows that these platforms are most useful when surveys are designed around explicit ecological variables rather than image production alone. RGB imagery and structure-from-motion models provide detailed surface geometry; multispectral, thermal, and laser sensors add information on vegetation condition, moisture, temperature, and three-dimensional structure. Repeated surveys can reveal erosion, inundation, habitat fragmentation, restoration performance, and wildlife distribution at operational scales. Major constraints include variable illumination, water reflectance, wind, tides, positional uncertainty, disturbance risk, regulation, limited training data, and inconsistent validation. Effective programs therefore require standardized timing, field calibration, uncertainty reporting, ethical flight practice, and workflows that convert mapped patterns into management indicators. Future progress depends on sensor integration, explainable automation, interoperable time series, and sustained cooperation between remote-sensing specialists, ecologists, managers, and coastal communities.