Bay Area Teen Uses Drones to Map the Wetlands He Grew Up Loving

Srivathsan Ramanujam loves looking up at the sky from Sunnyvale Baylands Park and watching plane after plane soar overhead. The protected wetland, which spans more than 100 acres, served as his most beloved childhood playground. As a kid, he enjoyed spotting red-tailed hawks soaring overhead and shorebirds skittering along the multicolored salt ponds.

“I used to come out here and even eat the local pickleweed, which I insisted tastes like French fries,” Ramanujam said.

Today, the 17-year-old is a self-proclaimed outdoors and aviation nerd. His passion began during the pandemic, when Ramanujam’s dad bought him his first drone with a high-definition camera to keep him occupied and to get him outside. After learning how to fly it in his backyard, he eventually purchased a second drone and began exploring the nearby marshes.

“It’s just so addictive,” Ramanujam said. “Wetlands are the first thing you see when you land in the Bay Area. The beautiful colors, red, pink, green.”

He’s worried that rising sea levels, driven by human-caused climate change, could swallow the baylands he loves so dearly. Climate scientists predict that melting ice caps and expanding ocean waters could cause the seas to rise anywhere between a foot by 2050 and more than six feet by the end of the century.

Instead of drowning in fear, Ramanujam channeled his love for the bay into mapping more than 1,000 acres of wetlands across the South Bay. More than 80% of the Bay Area’s tidal wetlands were destroyed in the 19th and 20th centuries, and he wants to help decision-makers better understand what’s left.

On weekends and after school, Ramanujam sends his drones soaring over the marsh, allowing him to create high-definition maps, photos and videos that track elevation, erosion and plant health. He would like to show how the area has changed over time and identify the marshland areas most vulnerable to future flooding.

Many evenings, the Archbishop Mitty High School senior can be found at his computer, sorting through data and layering thousands of images to create maps that he publishes on his website and in videos on his YouTube channel. He convinced a few of his friends to help present his work to the City of Fremont’s Environmental Sustainability Commission back in June and to the Bay Conservation Development Commission in July.

He is also partnering with researchers from San Jose State to map how coastal erosion is affecting underserved communities in the Monterey Bay region.

“I hope these maps encourage youth to come into this field and try to save their backyard,” Ramanujam said. “I want the next generation to be able to enjoy it.”

Ramanujam presented his latest findings at the State of the San Francisco Estuary Conference this week. He wants to encourage leaders to accelerate efforts to restore the Bay Area’s historic waterfront to “its original glory.” He believes his maps will help researchers as data becomes harder to find due to recent federal cuts.

Liv Juvera, an environmental planner with the San Francisco Estuary Partnership, said she was excited to receive Ramanujam’s request to present a research poster at the conference.

“I had not heard directly from a high schooler before who was so eager to present,” Juvera said. “Him being so tenacious and eager to invest in conservation and restoration of the estuary through his work is singular.”

Juvera said he could help planners better understand how to meet the regional goal of eventually restoring 100,000 acres of tidal marsh. Today, the Bay Area has met over half its goal. Ramanujam’s research can provide “tangential” insight into how to make communities “more resilient to sea level rise and by proxy flood risk reduction,” Juvera said.

While Ramanujam was the only high schooler who presented a poster at the conference, she said other young people shared ideas, panels, sessions and research.

She hopes more young people will work to protect and restore San Francisco Bay.

“The more youth that get engaged in taking care of the estuary, the better,” Juvera said. “It’s exciting to see people who still want to do good.”