The Department of Science and Technology’s Marine Research Plan focuses on understanding the role of biodiversity in maintaining ecosystems’ functionality, the relationships between human pressures and ecosystems, and the impact of Global Change on marine ecosystems. The Research Plan identified specific research themes including oceans and marine ecosystems under global change, ecosystems, biodiversity and biodiscovery, and coastal and marine resources, society and development. Investigating and developing signal processing algorithms for underwater acoustic signals to detect, classify and track cetaceans forms part of the third theme of the Plan. There are some challenges to monitoring cetacean populations Addressing the challenges Conclusion A good representation of overall marine ecosystem health is evident from the abundance and state of marine mammal populations. Nevertheless, various factors including climate change and human activities can affect these ecosystems. However, the effective monitoring and management of marine living resources – where these living organisms inhabit a vast, mainly inaccessible and hostile environment – requires innovation and the use of the best available technologies and methods.
