Monitoring Coral Populations

As threats to coral reefs increase in severity and frequency, researchers are looking for ways to increase monitoring scale and efficiency. Scientists are now exploring the use of 3D technology such as photogrammetry, also called Structure-from-Motion (SfM), to collect imagery that can be analyzed later and significantly reduce dive time underwater. In a new study developed for the NOAA National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (Couch et al., 2021), CIMAR scientists at PIFSC, led by CIMAR Supervisory Coral Reef Researcher Dr. Courtney Couch, compared data from standard in-water visual coral surveys to data generated from SfM for the first time to test the differences between the methods for the same reef areas. Couch and her team found that the majority of the tested metrics did not vary between methods. However, there were some exceptions for metrics including coral partial mortality, coral bleaching prevalence, and the juvenile density of a specific coral genera. Overall, this study suggests that SfM imagery may revolutionize the way we monitor coral reefs in the future.