CORaiL was deployed in May 2019 to the reef around Pangatalan Island in the Philippines, and has collected more than 40,000 images that researchers have used to analyze the health of the reef in real time. The objective? Help researchers monitor and restore the coral reef.
Coral reefs are one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world, with more than 800 species of coral that provide habitat and refuge for approximately 25% of the world’s marine life. They are also extremely beneficial to humans, protecting shores from tropical storms, providing food and income for one billion people, and generating $ 9.6 billion in tourism and recreation annually.
In danger
However, according to the United Nations Environment Program, coral reefs are endangered and rapidly degrading due to overfishing, trawling, rising water temperatures and unsustainable urbanization of reefs. coastlines.
The abundance and diversity of fish are an important indicator of the overall health of the reef. Traditional coral reef monitoring efforts involve human divers collecting the data directly underwater or manually taking videos and photographs of the reef for further analysis. These methods are widely reliable and widely used, but they do have their drawbacks. Divers can interfere with wildlife behavior and unintentionally alter study results, and maneuvering time underwater is limited; often they can only take photos and videos for about 30 minutes.
Engineers from Accenture, Sulubaaï and Intel combined their knowledge and experiences for the CORaiL project to help researchers restore and complement the currently degraded reef in the Philippines. First, they built a prosthesis for the Joló Reef, an underwater concrete platform designed by Sulubaaï that provides solid support for unstable coral fragments. The Joló Reef prosthesis incorporates within it fragments of living coral that will grow and expand, thus creating a hybrid habitat for fish and marine life.
They then strategically placed smart underwater video cameras, equipped with Accenture’s Applied Intelligence video analysis services platform (VASP) to detect and photograph fish in their wake. This platform uses artificial intelligence to count and classify marine life, and then sends the data to a control panel on the surface, where it offers analysis and trends to researchers in real time, allowing them to make data-driven decisions to protect the reef.
CORaiL project
“The value of data depends on how quickly you can get information to make decisions from it,” explains Athina Kanioura, director of analytics at Accenture and head of Applied Intelligence at the company. Real-time analysis via streaming video, VASP allows us to tap into a rich source of data – in fact, it performs hands-on monitoring that doesn’t interfere with the underwater environment. “
Engineers are now working on the next-generation CORaiL prototype, which will include an optimized neural network and a backup power source. They are also considering the possibility of using infrared cameras that allow making night videos, to recreate a complete image of the coral ecosystem. Other uses could be studying the migration rate of tropical fish to colder waters and monitoring intrusion into protected or restricted underwater areas.
