On Intertidal Seaweed

1/26/2026

Debora Borges’ topic at the January 15th ISSER conference was interesting to me as well. Professor Borges is a Ph.D and researcher who studies the ecological impact (which is the impact of living organisms and the environment around them) of various things on the environment, such as intertidal seaweed. Intertidal seaweed is seaweed that is easier to access because of where it is located, such as around rocky reefs at the water’s edge. It can be found in reefs surrounding South America including off the coast of Argentina, Brazil, and Peru. It is typically accessed by foot, which makes that seaweed easier to harvest (and also easier to trample). Intertidal seaweed is a primary producer of carbon dioxide through photosynthesis (where plants use sunlight and carbon dioxide to create “food”, releasing oxygen as a result of it that powers human and other life on Earth). Intertidal seaweed is also increasingly becoming used for “human consumption” both for food products and the development of health-related products. 

In short, intertidal seaweed is important and the world needs to monitor its output to understand key environmental change indications. However, Professor Borges thinks its impact is not accounted for sufficiently in the analysis of our environment and climate change. So, for part of Professor Borges’ work, as she measures the environmental impact of the intertidal seaweed, she seeks to determine if it can be better measured through drones, which she calls “Unoccupied Aerial Vehicles.”

Professor Borges’s presentation at the conference described how she studied whether using UAV’s will yield equal and even more accurate measurement information, and whether “remote sensing” and “unsupervised” techniques through these UAV’s could be equally (or more) informative of the data from the seaweed. Professor Borges also looked at the time of year (e.g., summer months) to assess whether using UAV’s, without the need for labor intensive human actions, would yield equal or more accurate measurement results. She concluded it did, and she supported the results of her study by detailing the intricacies of the monitoring techniques utilized. Thus, backed up by the data and reliability of the way Professor Borges went about conducting the study, she persuasively demonstrates that this method of measurement is effective, and it will improve scientific analysis and validation of data from intertidal seaweed.