Now for the kind of drone involvement in fishing that is not controversial at all; as opposed to this one: Drone services start-up Uganda Flying Labs is working with nature conservation and fish farming professionals around Lake Victoria in East Africa, to help with mapping and water quality monitoring around the area.

In partnership with The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the Ugandan custodian of WeRobotics’ Flying Labs franchise offering drone, mapping, and data analytics services; had the opportunity to support the TRUEFISH project through the demonstration of drones for mapping and water quality monitoring.

Funded by the European Union, the TRUEFISH project is a multi-year venture aimed at ensuring the rapid transition of aquaculture into a more efficient and sustainable sector; addressing challenges and threats that could undermine the sustainability of aquaculture development or could negatively impact the environment, food security, or livelihoods; as well as promoting harmonised aquaculture development in the East African region through shared experiences, examples, and lesson learning.

The project is being run by parties that include the Lake Victoria Fisheries Organization (LVFO), Landell Mills, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and WorldFish; and involves all the five countries within the Lake Victoria basin — Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

“This innovative approach marks a potential advancement in the fish farming sector, offering a promising solution to streamline operations and reduce costs,” said Tinah Mutabazi, Uganda Flying labs coordinator. 

“We conducted both a trial of water quality sampling and mapping at a commercial aquaculture operation outside of Entebbe, Uganda.

“Utilising a DJI Phantom 4, we demonstrated the use of new technologies to collect a water sample to be measured for water quality parameters. This can help the farmer to streamline decisions, including whether the water meets the optimum standard for fingerlings (young fish). It was such an experience to witness a drone payload with a water bottle attached collecting water out of the nursery ponds instead of the time-consuming manual methods.”

Mutabazi added that the start-up also flew drones above the lake to map out the fish cages.

“Until recently, I had not been exposed to fish farming (on the scale of what she came across) on the lake; I was accustomed to traditional fisheries, where the fishermen put a rod in the water or use nets from their boats, scooping fish out.

“The definition of fish farming or aquaculture as I understood it then, was ponds in the ground. Now I know that has been superseded by fish cages, which I recently flew over during a drone mission. Constructed in the deep waters of Lake Victoria, these cages are more productive.

“The images collected during the mapping mission were processed and stitched together with DroneDeploy software for the participants to see the number, dimension, location, interval spacing, shape, and capacity of cages on the lake.”

As part of its service offering, Uganda Flying Labs also hosted 64 aquaculture stakeholders at a workshop to discuss the application of drone technology in the industry.

The workshop included a demonstration of the use of drones for fish cage mapping and water quality monitoring, with the trainers presenting on data analysis of fish cage mapping and prepared notes and tutorials for them to practise.

“The success of this workshop highlights the many potential benefits of new technologies for aquaculture development in Lake Victoria. Even more importantly, this workshop demonstrated the potential of emerging drone technologies in fish farming. Many thanks to TNC, FAO, and LVFO for their support and great wealth of knowledge in aquaculture.”

Going forward, the start-up said it hoped to offer more services to the aquaculture industry in Lake Victoria, which include health and environmental managementfor fish.For instance, fish health could be checked by drones regularly by flying over cages and capturing images and videos to monitor behaviour, mortality, or the presence of parasites.

Infected fish can be treated or removed from the cage, isolated, recorded, and reported to relevant authorities based on farm management plans.

The Drones can also be used more frequently to measure water quality parameters in the cage area, especially dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, nitrogen, and turbidity; even to feed fish, providing a more sustainable and less labour-intensive method to grow fish and ultimately provide a healthy source of fish to the people living around the lake.

Uganda depends on Lake Victoria for 60 percent of its fish supply.