Viktor Wu

The marine rewilding effect: Building a cost-effective framework for measuring Marine Net Gain

I have an academic background in Physical Geography, focusing on Geomatics and Satellite Remote Sensing with applications on glaciers, ice sheets, wildfires and forests. After graduating my MSc, I worked at the Swedish Board of Agriculture with developing a system for monitoring agricultural activity using satellite data. In addition to my interest in geosciences I am passionate about the interactions between nature and society. This motivates my enthusiasm for interdisciplinary research, which I am currently pursuing in my PhD.

With my PhD research, which is part of the NETGAIN DFA, I aim to build a cost-effective framework for measuring marine rewilding using geospatial, bioacoustic and societal indicators. I aim to develop multiple metrics, including Remote Sensing approaches to detect changes related to restored species such as seagrasses and oysters as well as their ecosystem services and functions. With Machine Learning approaches and signal processing I aim to use bioacoustics to measure changes in fish occurrence, habitat use and photosynthesis from fish grunts and bubble-popping sounds. Furthermore, I am studying the societal effects of rewilding, by assessing things like human well-being and economic impacts.

Dates: 2025-2029

Supervisors: Dr Laurence De Clippele, Flurina Wartman & Tiffany Vlaar

Non-Academic partner: CreditNature