world, drones are also being used in the delta for saving the environment. In Cameron County and along the coast, drones are being used to monitor environmental conditions that affect our community. Last year, County Marine Agent Tony Reisinger, who works with Cameron County through the Texas Sea Grant and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, used drones along with scientists from UTRGV and TAMUCC to monitor red tide conditions that affected the Lower Laguna Madre. “Right now, we track red tide movement with satellite flyovers,” he said. “Not only is that very expensive, but data collection is sometimes limited by cloud cover. We currently determine red tide concentrations by manually taking hundreds of water samples to measure red tide cell concentrations. A multi-spectral equipped UAV could quickly do all that from the air in a fraction of the time and expense if concentrations can be correlated with color change.” Red tide conditions along South Padre Island severely influence
Tony Reisinger, Cameron County Coastal and Marine Resources Agent for Texas Sea Grant and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, left, and Dr. Jinha Jung, assistant professor of Engineering at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, review the images from UAV overflights of a red tide off South Padre Island on Sept. 20. In the background is Dr. Anjin Chang, a postdoctoral research associate in Jung’s laboratory, who assisted with the UAV launches.
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