Segment Anything Model (SAM) Assisted Remote Sensing Supervision for Mariculture—Using Liaoning Province, China as an Example

Abstract

Obtaining spatial distribution information on mariculture in a low-cost, fast, and efficient manner is crucial for the sustainable development and regulatory planning of coastal zones and mariculture industries. This study, based on the Segment Anything Model (SAM) and high-resolution remote sensing imagery, rapidly extracted mariculture areas in Liaoning Province, a typical northern province in China with significant mariculture activity. Additionally, it explored the actual marine ownership data to investigate the marine use status of Liaoning Province’s mariculture. The total area of mariculture we extracted in Liaoning Province is 1052.89 km2. Among this, the area of cage mariculture is 27.1 km2, while raft mariculture covers 1025.79 km2. Through field investigations, it was determined that in the western part of Liaodong Bay, cage mariculture predominantly involves sea cucumbers. In the southern end of Dalian, the raft mariculture focuses on cultivating kelp. On the other hand, around the islands in the eastern region, the primary crop in raft mariculture is scallops, showing a significant geographical differentiation pattern. In the planned mariculture areas within Liaoning Province’s waters, the proportion of actual development and utilization is 11.2%, while the proportion approved for actual mariculture is 90.2%. This indicates a suspicion that 9.8% of mariculture is possibly in violation of sea occupation rights, which could be due to the untimely updating of marine ownership data. Based on SAM, efficient and accurate extraction of cage mariculture can be achieved. However, the extraction performance for raft mariculture is challenging and remains unsatisfactory. Manual interpretation is still required for satisfactory results in this context.