Students from the Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Indonesia have developed an IoT-based tool to monitor sea turtle nest temperatures at Ba’batoa Beach, West Sulawesi.

At the western tip of West Sulawesi, the UGM (ugm.ac.id) community service programme team of Arung Campalagian has developed an IoT-based prototype to monitor nest temperatures for sea turtle conservation at Ba’batoa Beach.

The student team, consisting of Rizal Kurniawan Saputra (electrical engineering), Salma Nur Jihan (internet engineering technology) and Wahyudi Maulana (engineering physics), designed the tool called Online Hatchery.

The device uses an ESP32 microcontroller (www.espressif.com/en/products/socs/esp32) as its control unit and integrates two main sensors: the DHT22 (cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/f/7/d/9/c/DHT22.pdf) to measure air temperature around the nest and the DS18B20 (www.analog.com/en/products/ds18b20.html), embedded in the sand, to monitor nest temperatures directly.

Ba’batoa Beach is an important sea turtle conservation site managed by Laut Biru, a nonprofit organisation active in preserving marine ecosystems through turtle conservation, coral reef protection, marine waste management and mangrove planting. Laut Biru has recorded a hatching success rate of up to 90 per cent.

“However, challenges arise because most hatchlings are female, as the warmer sand temperature, around 28 to 30˚C, tends to produce females,” said Saputra. “Male hatchlings, on the other hand, are formed at lower temperatures, between 26 and 28˚C.”

Busdar, a conservationist from Laut Biru, said they previously lacked equipment to monitor nest sand temperatures accurately and continuously.

“This is the first tool available for us to carry out monitoring,” Busdar said. “Previously, we only used devices brought by visiting researchers. If no researchers came, then no tools were available.”

Through this device, Saputra explained, nest temperature data can be monitored online, enabling Laut Biru to take preventive measures, such as adjusting shade or humidity, to balance the sex ratio of hatchlings.

“There was even a question whether this could be applied to conservation sites in Kalimantan, and this is certainly possible, provided there is internet access if remote monitoring is to be maintained,” Saputra said.

With this innovation, the Arung Campalagian team hopes sea turtle conservation at Ba’batoa Beach will not only maintain a high hatching success rate but also ensure a balanced population of males and females for the species’ sustainability in the future.