Spectral Reflectance of Indian Ocean Surface to Detect Blue Whales Using VHRS Images.

Protecting blue whales is a core principle of the One-earth Initiative. Accurate detection and classification in oceanic environments are crucial for marine conservation, particularly to avoid mis-classification with other marine objects. Building on our earlier work using Transformer-based models for Detection and tracking of blue whales in the Indian Ocean, this study refines classification accuracy through the application of spectral indices. High-resolution data, obtained from NSIL Bangalore(ISRO) and Planet.com with resolutions of 1.6m and 3m, respectively, is utilized to tackle the complex task of distinguishing blue whales from other marine objects. Statistical Machine learning model are used to validate the detection output accurately by means of whale reflectance data. Mean square error(MSE) is used to check the performance of the prediction. The combined use of these technologies outperformed traditional methods, offering an accuracy of 0.85 and reliability for real-time whale monitoring.