/PRNewswire/ — Huawei and partners today announced preliminary results of a groundbreaking AI solution designed to study and protect Chinese white dolphins in China’s Xiamen Bay.
The project, which was launched three months ago under the Huawei TECH4ALL initiative, has so far:
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- 13 individual dolphins were identified based on 2820 photos and videos.
- achieved an individual identification accuracy of more than 90% and a complex behavior recognition rate of 85%.
- improved data labeling efficiency by 400%.
- increase law enforcement response time to vessels traveling too fast or entering protected areas by 65%.
“The data-driven insights AI delivers will help conservationists formulate targeted conservation measures to understand and respond to threats to this emblematic dolphin species so they survive and thrive in the wild,” said Cui Yangyang, director of the TECH4ALL Program Office for Huawei.
Chinese white dolphins are a nationally protected species classified as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Major threats in Xiamen Bay, where 51% of China’s dolphin population lives, include shipping, fishing and coastal construction projects.
Noise pollution, entanglement in fishing gear and loss of habitat threaten their long-term survival.
In partnership with the Third Institute of Oceanography under China’s Ministry of Natural Resources and China Mobile, the project includes a feature recognition system that can identify individual animals based on the unique markings of their dorsal fins.
“With the introduction of AI, surveys are now more efficient and conservation efforts are more accurate,” said Wang Xianyan, leader of the Endangered Marine Species Research and Conservation Team of the Third Institute of Oceanography under China’s Ministry of Natural Resources. “The data on individual survival, reproductive dynamics and social interactions provided by the AI recognition system provides a crucial basis for developing conservation measures.”
The solution offers image pre-processing, AI-enabled inference and recognition, dorsal fin image cropping, data classification and cloud rendering. Each dolphin has its own file, which allows researchers to track the status of individual animals. With long-term data crucial for formulating conservation measures, researchers can look at the dolphins’ numbers, distribution, age structure and reproductive behavior, as well as the threats these animals face.
The manual monitoring that was common before proved time-consuming and could not provide the necessary reliable insights to monitor population dynamics and develop targeted protection measures.
According to the Third Institute of Oceanography, the next 10 to 15 years will be crucial for population growth. The Chinese white dolphin is vital to coastal marine ecosystems and the ocean’s role as a carbon sink. They feed on fish that eat plankton. Plankton in turn absorbs CO2 and fixes carbon through photosynthesis. By indirectly participating in the carbon cycle through the food chain, protecting the dolphin population and the integrity of the ocean ecosystem is crucial to tackling climate change.
In addition to analytics powered by AI, a 5G-A network with 10 base stations covers 330 square kilometers of the bay, seamlessly covering key conservation zones.
By leveraging the integrated sensing and communication capabilities of 5G-A and combining data from radar, visual terminals, satellites and AIS (Automatic Identification System) ship positioning, ship movements within a 20 kilometer radius can be tracked in real time. The system issues AI-powered alerts within seconds for violations such as border crossing or speeding, and law enforcement can verify violations and quickly locate offending vessels through shore-based monitoring.
So far, 12 vessels have been investigated for potentially endangering the dolphins.
With the continuous efforts of research combined with the application of AI, the secret life of the Chinese white dolphin population in Xiamen Bay is gradually revealed, and hope for their survival arises.
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