Hydroacoustics in Marine, Transitional and Freshwaters

Dear Colleagues,

There is an increasing concern around the world about the potential effects that human pressure and climate change can introduce into the environment of both marine and freshwater ecosystems. The need to increase the capacity to detect, understand, and predict these effects requires developing cost-effective, reliable, and efficient technologies, in order to enable the collection of rigorous scientific data, which would allow determining the current status of the ecosystem. It seems that hydroacoustics is an ideal tool to sample and survey aquatic ecosystems, because: 1. It senses remotely, so it affects neither the studied object nor its environment, 2. it allows collection of the huge quantity of data in a short time, 3. it provides continuous, spatial (3D) information with very high spatial and temporal resolution (centimeters and seconds), 4. it can be collected in conjunction with other biological and physicochemical data (for example, such parameters as temperature, oxygen, chl. a, etc.), and 5. it is GPS integrated, allowing easy mapping of the data. Thus, hydroacoustics allows studying dynamic processes, spatial structures, and temporal patterns in ecological interactions that other methods do not allow.

The main objective of this Special Issue is to summarize recent advances in diverse applications of hydroacoustics in fisheries and aquatic ecology research, covering a broad range of environments, new technologies, and theoretical approaches, as well as future directions.

We welcome contributions dealing with but not limited to the following topics:

• Fisheries’ acoustics (stock assessment, spatial distributions, size distributions, etc.);
• Fish behavioral studies (predator-prey interactions, vertical and horizontal migrations, avoidance, etc.);
• Habitat mapping (including bottom sediments, macrophytes, cyanobacterial blooms);
• Applications in aquaculture;
• Ambient noise and soundscape;
• Combination of methods (comparison of acoustic results with other assessment methods);
• Technology, innovations in equipment, and data processing.

Prof. Dr. Małgorzata Godlewska
Prof. Dr. Shaowen Ye
Guest Editors

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