Artash Nath
Founder, YOU-Oceans | Student @ Stanford University
My work spans the frontiers of oceans, space exploration, robotics, pandemics, and AI, focusing on solving intergenerational challenges with cutting-edge algorithms, advanced computations, and big data. I've shared my expertise through 80+ talks at prestigious conferences, including the UN Ocean Conference, and the American Geophysical Union.
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LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/artash-nath/
Personal Site: www.ArtashNath.com
You-Oceans
Mission
YOU-OCEANS is dedicated to the conservation and protection of marine mammal populations by leveraging cutting-edge technology and data-driven insights. Our mission is to monitor and mitigate the impacts of human activities on marine life, providing actionable information to policymakers, NGOs, and intergovernmental organizations to develop and implement effective conservation strategies.
The Challenge
Increased industrialization of oceans for trade, offshore energy, commercial fishing, and possibly deep-sea mining in future are leading to increased underwater noise pollution. The noise impacts the ability of marine mammals to use sound to communicate, migrate, reproduce, and care for their young, leading to stress, collision with ships and mortality. Combined with ocean acidification and climate change pressures, it has put 25% of marine mammals at risk of extinction, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). 6 out of the 13 great whale species are endangered.
Nutrient-rich whale poop fertilizes the ocean surface leading to phytoplankton blooms that feed billions of fish while capturing carbon from the atmosphere. The decline in whale populations destabilizes the ocean and climate ecosystems and threatens fisheries, coral reefs and the food chain. It hurts coastal and indigenous communities that rely on them for economies, tourism and sustenance.
Our Solution
A three-step solution is proposed through You-OCEANS. First, identify ocean hotspots where global shipping superhighways overlap with global whale superhighways used to migrate between feeding and breeding grounds. Then, create and apply artificial intelligence algorithms to acoustic data from hydrophone networks in these hotspots to detect the presence of endangered marine mammals. Second, crowdsource and combine data from multiple hydrophones and other assets in hotspots to understand the movements and behaviour of marine mammals. Third, support conservation measures to reduce the impact of anthropogenic activities on marine mammals, such as sending text alerts when the presence of endangered whales is detected or temporary movement of shipping lanes.Low-cost hydrophones could be tested and deployed where no hydrophones are found near the ocean hotspots. An interactive portal will be created where analysis from different oceanic regions will be posted.
Innovation
At present, monitoring endangered marine mammals and their behaviour is done through visual observations from drones, planes, boats and spotting scopes. This method requires presence near the coast or in the ocean, during the daytime, when whales are surfacing, and planning, equipment and trained researchers. The researchers and their vehicles have to respect maritime boundaries, as the migration path of whales cuts across borders.
You-OCEANS uses hydrophone data to continuously detect endangered whales day and night, from remote and even when whales are underwater. The AI algorithm would not require dedicated researchers to make a detection. This information could automatically be sent out as a text alert. It would protect the whales as countries like Canada and the USA have policies to temporarily close crab fisheries when endangered whales, such as the Right Whales, are detected. Continuous monitoring of networks of hydrophones would give advance warnings to officials and fisherpeople.