The future of coral reef protection lies at the intersection of technology and collaboration, say Australian researchers who are designing a global real-time monitoring system.They hope to help save the world’s coral
The future of coral reef protection lies at the intersection of technology and collaboration, say Australian researchers who are designing a global real-time monitoring system.
They hope to help save the world’s coral reefs from further decline, primarily caused by bleaching as a result of global warming. In the past two years, 75% of coral reefs worldwide have experienced bleaching-level heat stress.
A collaborative project led by the University of South Australia is integrating remote sensing technologies with machine learning, AI and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to monitor the damage.
A multimodal platform will distil all research data relating to coral reefs, including underwater videos and photographs, satellite images, text files and time-sensor readings, onto a central dashboard for real-time global monitoring.
The researchers say an integrated system will track bleaching severity and trends over time; monitor crown-of-thorns starfish populations and predation risks; detect disease outbreaks and juvenile coral levels; and assess reef fish abundance, diversity, length and biomass.
By centralizing all this data in real time, they hope to generate predictive models that will help conservation efforts, enabling early intervention.
Citizen scientists are also helping with reef conservation. Volunteers are helping with surveys of the Great Barrier Reef led by
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