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Helping to understand and protect coral reefs through imagery

Dominic Bryant, 2003 Alumnus, Dover Campus

UWCSEA alum is moving the Catlin Seaview Survey forward, one quadrant at a time. 

The Catlin Seaview Survey is a global coral reef survey which aims to reveal the world’s coral reefs in high resolution 360° panoramic images. I have the privilege of earning my PhD as one of the Catlin Oceans Scholars at The University of Queensland’s Global Change Institute (GCI). The GCI is the lead scientific partner of the Catlin Seaview Survey, and has the responsibility of extracting scientific ecological information on the current condition of the world’s coral reefs from the images under the direction of leading climate change and coral reef scientist, Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, the Chief Scientist on the project and GCI Director. During my time so far with the Catlin Seaview Survey, I have had the opportunity to travel the length of the Caribbean and now the Coral Triangle in the Indo-Pacific region.

Why coral reefs?

A view of the reef and SVII camera in action on Glovers Reef, Mexico

A view of the reef and SVII camera in action on Glovers Reef, Mexico


Despite covering less than one percent of the earth’s surface, coral reefs provide food and livelihoods for over 500 million people worldwide. They also provide protection from storms, waves and open seas for coastal communities1 creating peaceful and productive lagoon environments. However, coral reefs are currently experiencing decline at a rate faster than any ecosystem in earth’s history, with many reefs losing 40-50% coral cover in the last 30 years.

This loss is due to various threats that cause physical damage or stress to the corals from both local (e.g., overfishing, reduction in water quality, crown of thorn starfish outbreaks, storms, and coastal hardening etc.) and global (e.g., global warming and ocean acidification) drivers. The cumulative effects of increased population pressure adjacent to reefs and increased carbon emissions worldwide have left reefs less resilient to recover from an impact such as a tropical storm or coral bleaching event.

If corals are unable to recover, entire colonies can die. Colonies of thousands of individual polyps are no longer able to perform the process of calcification, or the creation of the internal skeleton that is the basis for the coral structure. This leaves the colony unable to defend itself from being overgrown by faster growing macro algae. This is known as a phase shift, where macroalgae become the more dominant life form in the ecosystem, instead of coral. Many Caribbean reefs have undergone a catastrophic phase shift from coral reefs to algal-dominated systems since the 1970s. Current research being conducted using replicated patch reefs reconstructed in experimental tanks within the Coral Reef Ecosystems Laboratory at The University of Queensland (UQ) is showing coral reefs will face very serious consequences from ocean warming and acidification in the next 50-100 years if current carbon emission trajectories continue. This could ultimately result in coral reefs being unable to recover and most likely disappearing for thousands of years.

From a human resources perspective, this essentially renders the ecosystem services (e.g., tourism, fishing, and coastal protection) provided by coral reefs useless. Without the reef, there will be a serious drop in tourism income from activities such as diving and snorkeling. Tourists will literally find better things to do than visit an iconic site that is meant to have lots of coral but has none. The Great Barrier Reef alone attracts roughly 1.6 million tourists a year, generating over AUD$5 billion a year for the Australian economy and providing 63,000 tourism related jobs in the region.

Perhaps more pressing and less obvious is what happens to the ocean’s many sources of food. Coral reefs provide a myriad of hiding spots for all sizes of fish and other edible species that live on coral reefs, but without the hard structure of a coral reef, there are no more ‘hiding spaces’. These hiding spaces provide refuge from predators on the reef such as sharks, barracudas and other large reef fish. Approximately 450 million people living within coastal communities of the East-Asia Pacific region live below the poverty line, getting by on less than AUD$2 a day. Without the reef as a source of protein and income, residents within these coastal communities face starvation and/or resettlement. I have witnessed this on remote islands off the coast of Borneo, where the effects of dynamite fishing have left populated islands without a source of protein.

The importance of imagery

Dominic focusing the camera in readiness for a shoot.

Dominic focusing the camera in readiness for a shoot.


Unfortunately less than one percent of people on earth have the opportunity to witness the beauty and wonder of a coral reef first hand. Many people who rely on coral reefs do not get the opportunity to see what a coral reef is supposed to look like, let alone understand the impact coral reefs have on their lives.

One of the challenges facing coral reefs is that they are underwater, meaning they are ‘out of sight and out of mind’ for most people. If you have ever spoken to people from older generations about coral reefs, you may have heard them say something along the lines of “this site was a lot better 10 years ago!”

But without any proof of what a reef looked like, our perception of a healthy reef changes to what we see in front of us. Perceptions of healthy coral reefs are often referred to as being on a shifting baseline; a healthy reef today may have been considered an unhealthy reef a decade ago. Documenting the current condition of coral reefs now, means we can observe changes they face in an uncertain future of increased environmental stresses from human-induced climate change and population pressure.

There is a considerable amount of time and effort in getting images to the masses by the project originators Underwater Earth. Underwater Earth is a not-for-profit organisation run by a team of ex-advertising experts who are dedicated to supporting and promoting ocean science and raising global awareness of ocean issues. Imagery is made freely available on Google Street View, allowing anyone to have virtual dive experience from the comfort of their own home. This outreach tool has already attracted a following of 3.5 million followers on social media networks. This is an integral part of the Catlin Seaview Survey because it gives the public awareness about coral reefs and the fact that they are currently in considerable danger.

The next challenge is showing the condition of the world’s reefs in a scientific manner, where methods are carried out under strictly standardised scientific protocols across different locations. The Catlin Seaview Survey uses an SVII camera to collect images. The camera has three digital SLR cameras inside a housing, synchronised to take pictures every three seconds. The camera is attached to a Diver Propulsion Vehicle, allowing us to travel up to 2 kilometres in a single transect, collecting approximately 900 360° panoramic images.

For coral reef information, the bottom camera is positioned so it faces the reef, and the image is then cropped to create a standardised 1m2 quadrat of the bottom. Images are then annotated in an online interface called Coral Net, which uses automated computer vision technology developed by the SCRIPPS Institute of Oceanography. This rapidly processes coral reef conditions and assesses important information such as the percentage of hard coral cover or percentage of macro algae cover. There is also ability to collect important information about how coral reefs are affected by human disturbances, and this is what I plan to focus on partially for my PhD project.

The images (in all their different formats) go onto the open access Catlin Global Reef Record, an initiative of Underwater Earth with scientific protocols developed by scientists from the GCI. There are teams currently working on Citizen Science initiatives that will allow the public to be involved in analysing the images based on their own interests, whether it is looking at corals or identifying reef fish. This provides people around the world a greater sense of ownership and understanding when it comes to protecting our coral reefs.

All aspects of the Catlin Seaview Survey serve to achieve the goal of breaking through the “out-of-sight, out-of-mind” barrier that has obstructed marine conservation efforts in the past. This project has the capacity, through the efforts of all involved, to reach an extensive range of people to encourage the conservation of our reefs for future generations.

About the Catlin and the involvement of the University of Queensland

The Catlin Group is a global re-insurance company who believes they need to understand how current and future risks to our climate and populations could change the future of insurance. In the past, Catlin have also sponsored an Arctic Survey from 2009-2011, which investigated environmental changes in the Arctic. In sponsoring the Seaview Survey, they recognise how important coral reefs are to coastal communities and how important it is to measure change with a scientifically appropriate method. They also sponsor education programmes for both the Seaview and the Arctic Surveys. The school education programme provides schools with syllabus focused on the oceans, designed to open the minds of the next generation to both the beauty and value of coral reefs, as well as the risks to their existence.

The UQ in Australia is one of the leading research institutions in the world, and is committed to the sustainability of the world’s research through its research and learning practices. The GCI is situated within UQ’s St Lucia Campus, inside a “living building” designed to work with the environment to save energy and reduce emissions. Staff working in this building are generating, as opposed to consuming, energy. The GCI is a multi-disciplinary research institute focused on finding solutions to the challenge of global change in four key areas: food security and landuse, healthy oceans, renewable energy, and transforming policy, institutions and society. GCI is also involved in delivering the free tropical coastal ecosystems course, available online at UQx and edx websites. This university style module allows students to learn about tropical coastal ecosystems via video lectures and online assessments.

References

1     O. Hoegh-Guldberg, Coral reef ecosystems and anthropogenic climate change. Reg. Envir. Chang. 11, S215-S227 (2011); published online EpubMar (10.1007/s10113-010-0189-2).
2     T. P. Hughes, Catastrophes, phase-shifts, and large-scale degradation of a Caribbean coral-reef. Science 265, 1547-1551 (1994); published online EpubSep 9 (10.1126/science.265.5178.1547).
3     S. G. Dove, D. I. Kline, O. Pantos, F. E. Angly, G. W. Tyson, O. Hoegh-Guldberg, Future reef decalcification under a business-as-usual CO2 emission scenario. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 110, 15342-15347 (2013); published online EpubSep (10.1073/pnas.1302701110).