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Acoustic Monitoring

Acoustic Monitoring
Acoustic Monitoring has been used to improve the critically endangered Hainan Gibbon, photo by HINP

Acoustic monitoring is a non-invasive conservation tool that uses audio recording devices to capture sounds from wildlife in natural habitats. These devices, such as passive acoustic recorders or hydrophones, are deployed in terrestrial or aquatic environments to detect species through their vocalizations—like bird calls, bat echolocation, or marine mammal songs. By analyzing these recordings, researchers can identify species presence, monitor population trends, and study behavior over time. Acoustic monitoring is especially useful for tracking elusive, nocturnal, or underwater species and plays a vital role in biodiversity assessments and ecosystem health monitoring.

Targets & Actions

This technology can support the implementation of targets 3, 4, and 5

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Target 3 - Conserve 30% of Land, Waters and Seas

Ensure and enable that by 2030 at least 30 per cent of terrestrial, inland water, and of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, are effectively conserved and managed through ecologically representative, well-connected and equitably governed systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, recognizing indigenous and traditional territories, where applicable, and integrated into wider landscapes, seascapes and the ocean, while ensuring that any sustainable use, where appropriate in such areas, is fully consistent with conservation outcomes, recognizing and respecting the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, including over their traditional territories.
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Target 4 - Halt Species Extinction, Protect Genetic Diversity, and Manage Human-Wildlife Conflicts

Ensure urgent management actions to halt human induced extinction of known threatened species and for the recovery and conservation of species, in particular threatened species, to significantly reduce extinction risk, as well as to maintain and restore the genetic diversity within and between populations of native, wild and domesticated species to maintain their adaptive potential, including through in situ and ex situ conservation and sustainable management practices, and effectively manage human-wildlife interactions to minimize human-wildlife conflict for coexistence.
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Target 5 - Ensure Sustainable, Safe and Legal Harvesting and Trade of Wild Species

Ensure that the use, harvesting and trade of wild species is sustainable, safe and legal, preventing overexploitation, minimizing impacts on non-target species and ecosystems, and reducing the risk of pathogen spillover, applying the ecosystem approach, while respecting and protecting customary sustainable use by indigenous peoples and local communities.

Solutions and case studies

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Acoustic Monitoring for Improving the Conservation of Critically Endangered Hainan Gibbon

The Hainan gibbon (Nomascus hainanus) is one of the most endangered primates in the world, living in the Bawangling area of Hainan Province, China. Comprehensive tracking and monitoring is required for better conservation, but because of the difficulty in vivo tracking, acoustic equipment is needed for monitoring.

“Tech4Nature” is a global project jointly launched by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Huawei, aiming to develop more scientific protection measures, combined with the ICT industry, digital technology and IUCN Green List standards, provides technical support for the acoustic monitoring project of Hainan gibbons. To date, full coverage of 5 family groups monitoring has been achieved, automatic identification and real-time back transmission of Hainan gibbon acoustic monitoring have been realized.

CORCOPA – Optimized Conservation of Europa’s Coral Reefs using Ecoacoustics

The coral reef around Europa island is one of the world’s rare reefs that remain in a near pristine condition. Its conservation is both a priority and a logistic challenge due to its remoteness. The frequency of visual surveys (a snapshot every 3 to 5 years) is insufficient to support its effective management. Indeed, accelerating effects of climate change and temporal dynamics of reef populations require frequent monitoring. Moreover, visual surveys are expensive and provide only partial information.

In April 2018, we installed an autonomous acoustic monitoring station on Europa’s reef at 12 m depth. A hydrophone continuously records the soundscape. Data are transmitted to a terrestrial station, providing a near real-time information about the state of the ecosystem. To understand how variations in soundscape relate to ecosystem state, ecoacoustic indices were determined by coupling acoustic and visual surveys (videos for fishes, 3D modelling for habitat) on 9 sites around the island.

Rainforest Connection & Huawei: Acoustics for Biodiversity Monitoring and Threat Detection

Rainforest Connection (RFCx) has built the connective tissue to make acoustics a scalable worldwide approach to data collection and analysis for conservation. Our platform, including tools for biodiversity analysis and threat detection and a suite of hardware, enables people to understand ecosystem impacts.

The RFCx system can be used to:

  • Send real-time alerts to people who are able to investigate potential threats.
  • Find patterns of activity for planned interventions and measure effectiveness of responses.
  • Accommodate large data sets that can be used for biodiversity monitoring and shared.
  • Facilitate in-depth, long-term acoustic monitoring.
  • Evaluate the impacts of different management or conservation activities.
  • Follow the population dynamics of species over many years.
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