Digital Reefs
August 19th, 2023
Via Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a look at efforts to create the first coral reef digital twin, a multidisciplinary effort led by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution:
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) $5 million to participate in NSF’s ground breaking Convergence Accelerator Program. The project, led by WHOI scientist Anne Cohen, builds the world’s first Coral Reef Digital Twin, a 4-dimensional virtual replica of a living coral reef powered by state-of-the art data and models. “Digital Reefs” will be accessible and usable by coral reef stakeholders around the world who are making critical decisions every day to manage and protect these valuable ocean ecosystems.
The Phase 2 team includes: Siemens Technology, The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, and Stanford University, in addition to WHOI. Also on the team are Mote Marine Laboratory, the Marshall Islands Conservation Society, University of Guam, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Academy of Marine Research (NAMR) Taiwan, and Ebiil Society, Palau, whose major role will be to develop user-inspired modules, lead training workshops and advance the use of Digital Reefs in reef restoration.
“Globally, coral reefs support almost one billion people and are one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet. But coral reefs continue to decline at an unprecedented rate, despite a surge in data, funding, and political will in the last couple of decades,” said Cohen. “We found the problem is not lack of access to data and information. It is a lack of access, by decision makers—fishermen, managers, risk assessors, government agencies—to intuitive, interactive, actionable data. Almost everyone nowadays has a cellphone, there is a lot of data out there, people just can’t use it.”
“Our goal is to facilitate universal access to data and information that right now are available to just a handful of people. Democratization of information is the only way we can truly ensure that coral reefs have a future on our planet, and Digital Reefs is how we get there,” said Cohen.
The 21st century has brought with it unprecedented challenges for coral reefs, mainly from climate change, demanding new and innovative approaches to management, conservation, and restoration. Fundamental to effective decision-making is access to science-based data, information, and decision making tools.
“As reefs around the world suffer, so do the diverse and often vulnerable coastal ecosystems and humans that depend upon them,” said Joe Pollock, Ph.D., Senior Coral Reef Resilience Scientist at TNC. “We work to empower local communities with the tools, information, and partnerships needed to better safeguard reefs and the lives and livelihoods they sustain. Digital Reefs has the potential to revolutionize reef management and restoration by providing fine-scale, actionable information in an immersive, engaging, and highly visual format.”
Digital Twins are already widely used in industry and healthcare, where exact virtual replicas of engines, railway networks, and even human bodies are used to understand and test what-if scenarios, facilitate collaboration amongst different teams, and assist with decision making. The WHOI-led project, Digital Reefs: A Globally Coordinated, Universally Accessible Digital Twin Network for the Coral Reef Blue Economy, will develop the Digital Reefs prototype of Palmyra Atoll, and apply the prototype technology to reefs in the Marshall Islands and Taiwan as a test of their scaling model to build a global Digital Reefs network.
The Coral Reef Digital Twin is a virtual representation of a real reef, with all its features, consistently updated with new data from sensors and satellites. The digital twin allows users access to the dynamic, 3-dimensional system from a laptop or cellphone anywhere in the world to get real-time the information needed for sustainable harvesting of reef resources. Image credit: Cohen Lab © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Digital Reefs translates complex data and numerical model output into a digital replica of a coral reef. Users accessing the Digital Reef from their computer or cell phone will be immersed in a dynamic 4-D visualization of currents and corals, rather than a spreadsheet of numbers, although the supporting data will be downloadable. Users can move across the reef, and scuba dive into its depths to access information about water flow, temperatures, and reef inhabitants. The Digital Reefs platform will offer users the opportunity to visualize the reef in years past, and in the future as sea level rises and the ocean warms. Decision making tools enable users to change the reef —virtually— and examine the impact of the proposed changes, such as building a hotel or dredging a channel for boat access. Stakeholders can visualize how future climate change will affect their reef and the specific areas where they fish and farm. Restoration practitioners will be able to test which areas of the reef are optimal for restoration and to visualize larval dispersal patterns from restored areas.
“We’re in a crisis of survival for coral reefs,” said Stanford’s Steve Palumbi, “and we’re also in a crisis of data complexity. Everything about a reef is complex, so how do you make a decision about saving your local reef for your community and family when the answer is complicated? Digital Reefs takes data from the physics, biology, physiology, and ecology of a complex reef and shows you what its future is likely to be, depending on what you do, and decisions you make. We are all excited about contributing what we do best, to make this effort work.”
“Our work with NSF and WHOI highlights the boundless opportunities we now have available to us through digital twin technology,” said Virginie Maillard, Head of Siemens Technology US. “As we enter the next phase of this project, Siemens Technology will leverage its expertise in industrial digital twin to create a tangible digital twin of the coral reef that can be utilized by all, no matter background or expertise, for the greater purpose of collaboration to save our planet’s marine ecosystem.”
“There is a unique opportunity in offering people immersive access to underwater habitats,” said Stuart Sandin, professor of marine ecology, at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “The growth of digital data is a first step in understanding coral reefs, but the critical next step is in providing easy access to these data; the Digital Reefs project will build the tools to provide just this access.”
In September 2021, the NSF Convergence Accelerator Program launched the 2021 cohort and awarded $21 million across 28 multidisciplinary teams, focused on Phase 1 of the Track E: Networked Blue Economy and Track F: Trust & Authenticity in Communication Systems. In September 2022, NSF has made an additional $30 million investment in the Networked Blue Economy to advance use-inspired solutions addressing national-scale societal challenges. Track E: The Networked Blue Economy aims to create a smart, integrated, connected, and open ecosystem for ocean innovation, exploration, and sustainable utilization. The Track E Cohort was 16 teams in Phase 1 and is now six teams in Phase 2.
This work was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, and leveraged previous research that was supported by the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation.
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Read More »Oceans To Get Better Protection With Connected Underwater Technology
June 15th, 2023
Via the EU’s Horizon Innovation Magazine, a look at how – amid rising sea levels, plastics pollution and overfishing – the emerging Internet of Underwater Things will vastly expand knowledge about the world’s seas.
Imagine seals swimming in the sea with electronic tags that send real-time water data to scientists back in their laboratories. Or archaeologists near a coast being automatically alerted when a diver trespasses on a precious shipwreck.
Such scenarios are becoming possible as a result of underwater connected technologies, which can help monitor and protect the world’s oceans. They can also shed light on the many remaining mysteries of the sea.
New frontier
‘A lot of funding has been provided to companies and institutions exploring space, but we have oceans around us that we have not explored,’ said Vladimir Djapic, innovation associate at the EU-funded TEUTA project.
Around 70% of the Earth is covered by oceans and more than four-fifths of them have never been mapped, explored or even seen by humans.
The Internet of Underwater Things, or IoUT, is a network of smart, interconnected sensors and devices to make communicating in the sea easier. It contrasts with the Internet of Things, or IoT, covering everything from smart phones to devices that allow people to switch on home heating remotely,
TEUTA ran from October 2020 through March 2022. It helped a Croatian company, H20 Robotics, develop and sell lightweight low-cost acoustic devices and robotic platforms for underwater wireless networks.
‘With a limited number of underwater network installations before, we could only explore limited coastal areas,’ said Djapic, who is chief executive officer of Zagreb-based H20 Robotics.
Advances in underwater technologies are expected to transform many sectors including marine biology, environmental monitoring, construction and geology.
Whale-like ways
TEUTA developed acoustic technology, which mimics the way whales and dolphins communicate.
Acoustic waves, unlike radio or optical communication ones, travel long distances underwater regardless of whether it is murky or clear.
Remote sensors, measuring tools, detection systems or cameras set up at an underwater site gather data then sent to a buoy on the surface. The buoy in turn sends the information wirelessly back to base, via the cloud, without the need for communication cables.
One focus area is improving communications between divers and land-based colleagues, according to Djapic.
‘For example, a diver working in underwater construction can send a message to a supervisor and request additional help or tools or similar,’ said Djapic.
Improved underwater communications will help connect land and sea, © H2O ROBOTICS, 2023Improved underwater communications will help connect land and sea, © H2O ROBOTICS, 2023
Scientists also stand to benefit by, for example, being able to remotely turn on a water-quality measuring device installed on the seabed from their labs.
For their part, archaeologists could use the technology to help protect vulnerable underwater sites with intruder-detection technology installed in remote locations.
Indeed, TEUTA technology will support another EU-backed project, TECTONIC, seeking to improve the documentation and protection of underwater cultural heritage at three pilot sites.
The sites are the Capo Rizzuto Marine Protected Area in southern Italy, the submerged ancient harbour of Aegina in Greece’s Saronic Gulf and a shipwreck site in the Deseado estuary in Argentina.
Other possibilities such as underwater agriculture or mining could also open up, according to Djapic.
For public agencies or non-governmental organisations that monitor water quality, the technology could replace the need for researchers to go and collect samples physically and deliver them to the lab.
While TEUTA gave a boost to fledgling underwater communication technologies, more work needs to be done in marketing them and ensuring they are used more widely, according to Djapic.
‘It all needs to be analysed,’ he said. ‘Our technology enables the measuring of environmental parameters.’
Sensors and samplers
Meanwhile, in Italy, a team of researchers is pursuing a new approach to ocean-data collection by using sensors and samplers that could be integrated into existing observatories and platforms.
This would enable the gathering of vast amounts of information useful for, as an example, the proposed European Digital Twin of the Ocean announced in February 2022. The twin will be a real-time digital replica of the ocean integrating both historical and live data.
By developing a new generation of marine technologies, the EU-funded NAUTILOS project will gather previously inaccessible information and improve understanding of physical, chemical and biological changes in oceans.
Running for four years through September 2024, the project is coordinated by Gabriele Pieri of the Rome-based National Research Council.
‘Our proposal set out to fill a gap in the observation of oceans,’ said Pieri. ‘They are the largest habitats on Earth, but the least observed ones because of the difficulties in on-site observation and the costs of monitoring.’
NAUTILOS technology is already being tested in the Baltic and the Mediterranean seas, including the Aegean and Adriatic.
Sensors can, for example, measure levels of chlorophyll-A and dissolved oxygen in the water. These are important indicators of water quality and, by extension, of the presence of fish, helping protect their stocks.
Sensors and samplers collecting information about the concentration of microplastics in the water also expand understanding of the impact of human-generated pollution on the oceans.
Helping flippers and hands
One of the NAUTILOS partners, France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), has even recruited some unlikely teammates: seals.
Swimming off the Valdes Peninsula in Argentina, these sea creatures have been tagged with sensors that record valuable data about the animals themselves and their habitats.
The NAUTILOS team, made up of research institutions and companies, is developing more than a dozen types of sensors and samplers. These include remote sensing technologies and microplastics detectors.
The project is keen to demonstrate that the new tools can work with existing and future platforms and easily switch between them.
The tools are relatively cheap, can be deployed quickly and work in conjunction with other equipment, offering many advantages. For example, a sensor can be mounted on an autonomous underwater vehicle and then moved to a fixed buoy.
Citizen science is an important part of NAUTILOS, which works with volunteers organising campaigns around ocean plastics, for example, as well as with scuba-diving associations whose members can test new technologies and offer feedback.
The team has also developed a smartphone app for divers to upload photos of underwater flora or fauna that can be assessed by researchers.
‘The interest in citizen science has really surprised me,’ said Pieri. ‘A lot of people are willing to help improve the life of the sea.’
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Read More »Tracking Whales As They Cruise The Arctic
May 11th, 2023
Via Terra Daily, an article on how researchers were able to simultaneously tracking multiple whales using fiber-optic cables in the Arctic, off the coast of Svalbard:
Fibre-optic cables line the coasts of the continents and criss-cross the oceans, carrying signals that are the backbone of communication in the modern world. While their main job is telecommunications, researchers have been exploring ways to use this giant network to eavesdrop on everything from storms to earthquakes to whales.
Now, working with two nearly parallel fibre-optic telecommunications cables off the Norwegian arctic archipelago of Svalbard, researchers have been able to estimate the positions and tracks of eight fin whales along a section of the cable – for five hours.“This work demonstrates how we were able to simultaneously locate and follow these whales over an 1800 km2 area – with relatively low infrastructure investment,” said Martin Landro, head of the Centre for Geophysical Forecasting at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and one of the members of the team that did the work.
Transforming fibre cables into hydrophones
The system the researchers used for this work is called Distributed Acoustic Sensing, or DAS. DAS uses an instrument called an interrogator to send laser pulses into a fibre-optic system and records the returning light pulses, essentially turning the cables into a series of hydrophones.
Landro and his colleagues first began to explore the ability of DAS to record underwater vibrations and sounds in the waters off Svalbard in June 2020, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. At that time, they collected 40 days of recordings and roughly 250 terabytes of data. From these data, researchers were able to identify more than 800 whale songs and calls.
The researchers have built on this early work to expand their ability to identify different whale species and to conduct real time recording from the fibre optic cables in Svalbard.
For this latest effort, published in Frontiers of Marine Science, the researchers had access to two, nearly parallel 250 km long fibre-optic cables that extend from Longyearbyen, the main settlement in Svalbard, to Ny-Alesund, a research outpost to the northwest. The paired cables allowed the researchers to localize the whales with an accuracy of roughly 100 metres, within an area of roughly 1800 km2.
“This shows that the two fibre cables are a very effective means of monitoring whales in the Arctic,” Landro said.
A melting Arctic
As a Norwegian territory in the high arctic, Svalbard offers Landro and other researchers an important base from which to study this changing ecosystem.
Recent research predicts that the Arctic could be ice free in the summer as early as 2035, which could increase shipping and cruise ship traffic across the top of the globe.
As one small example, as many as 35 cruise ships and additional smaller expedition ships are expected to transport up to 75,000 people to Longyearbyen and surroundings in 2023, according to Visit Svalbard.
Could reduce ship strike risk
Whales are already changing the way they use the Arctic and Antarctic as feeding grounds, with some research showing that fin whales have begun spending time year-round in Arctic regions. That means increased ship traffic in these areas can also increase the likelihood of ship strikes. The use of the existing fibre-optic cable network and DAS could help reduce this possibility, the researchers said.
“The capabilities demonstrated here establish the potential for a near-real-time whale tracking capability that could be applied anywhere in the world where there are whales and fiber-optic cables,” the researchers wrote. “Coupled with ship detection, using a similar approach ….a real-time collision avoidance system could be developed to reduce ship strikes.”
This development comes at a time when NORDUnet, the Nordic Gateway for Research and Innovation and the Nordic NRENs have begun a number of initiatives to investigate and plan the first submarine fibre-optic cable system between Europe, Asia, and North America to secure a shorter route through the Arctic Ocean. The effort is called Polar Connect.
If such an initiative is realized, “it would open far greater areas for us to follow whale movements in the Arctic,” Landro said.
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Read More »AI-Powered Marine Mammal Spotting App
February 8th, 2023
An innovative new app, Seaspotter capitalizes both on AI and citizen scientists to support marine research by allowing anyone to simply take a picture of any marine mammals they encounter. SeaSpotter will then notify you of which animal was spotted, and log the findings to our open-source database ready for scientific research. ,
Read More »11 Innovations Deepening Our Understanding Of The Ocean Through Data
January 21st, 2023
Via the World Economic Forum, a look at 11 innovations deepening our understanding of the ocean through data:
80% of our ocean remains unmapped, unobserved and unexplored.
That is why it is so important to deepen our understanding of the ocean through innovation.
UpLink and Friends of Ocean Action launched the Ocean Data Challenge, calling for solutions to boost ocean conservation and promote a sustainable blue economy.
11 winners have been selected and will become a part of the UpLink Innovation Network, gaining access to a mentoring programme and the World Economic Forum’s network and partners.
Humans now have the ability to observe and understand the Earth’s surface with astonishing accuracy. Be it monitoring carbon emissions from a single source, documenting war crimes in conflict zones, or leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to detect wildfires, one could be forgiven for thinking we know all there is to know about our planet. Yet in reality, the majority of our planet, the ocean, remains a ‘blue box’ in comparison with our terrestrial environment.
The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates that “80% of our ocean is unmapped, unobserved and unexplored”. Such a dearth of ocean data limits our ability to account for the value of the ocean, to make wise ocean management decisions, and to protect and conserve our marine ecosystems from existing and emerging threats. This is why the High Level Panel for A Sustainable Ocean Economy has identified Ocean Knowledge as an essential area of transformation needed to sustainably manage the ocean.
Rising to the challenge of deepening our understanding of the ocean are innovations in sensors, satellites, artificial intelligence, autonomous underwater vehicles and more. Seeking to elevate the best of these innovators, UpLink & Friends of Ocean Action launched the Ocean Data Challenge, supported by the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory, Canada’s Ocean Supercluster, EMODnet, Fugro, HUB Ocean, Planet, The Economist Impact’s World Ocean Initiative, and Tidal | X – the Moonshot Factory. This challenge responded to the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development’s (UN Ocean Decade) call for the creation of a global ocean data ecosystem to connect businesses, organizations and government data providers.
The Ocean Data Challenge was a global call for start-ups and social enterprises that leverage and/or contribute to the global ocean data ecosystem and which demonstrate the applications for ocean data to boost ocean conservation and promote the sustainable blue economy. The identified innovators are working to advance our ocean knowledge in four important ways:
1. Advancing ocean data analytics
2. Generating community-level data and data designed to drive decisions
3. Developing commercial uses for public or open-source data resources
4. Building novel means of data collectionW-Sense has developed technology and data solutions enabling an “Internet of Underwater Things”. Their technology works with a wide range of sensors: up to 3000 meters data solutions permitting the operation of real-time monitoring networks across large areas, including multiple underwater assets.
Terradepth provides Ocean Data as a Service (ODaaS) beginning with their autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) through to data delivery on their custom, cloud-based user interface. Terradepth leverages its technology and data platforms to make the ocean “virtual”.
Ocean Data Network turns fishing vessels into ocean data miners, equipping fishing gear with IoT sensors. This low-cost, highly scalable model is addressing critical ocean data collection gaps, particularly in coastal areas.
Ellipsis Earth has developed an end-to-end, AI-based technology that can use imagery from multiple platforms (drones, cameras, etc) to identify and map environmental waste by type, weight, volume, impact, carbon footprint, material, brand and recycling value.
BioConsult and HiDef Aerial Surveying LTD have developed the SPACEWHALE service which uses satellite imagery at a .31m resolution and AI to significantly increase our ability to map and count whales globally. Their technology can even distinguish between species and identify juveniles and adults.
SINAY combines various sources of ocean and maritime data with AI through its Sinay Hub, generating valuable insights for maritime stakeholders including offshore energy, ports, and shipping companies. Sinay also monitors air, water, and noise pollution to predict the impact on biodiversity and assists companies in reducing their environmental footprints.
Jet Connectivity is bringing the power of 5G to the ocean. Their first-of-its-kind buoy platforms can accommodate a variety of sensors, cameras, radars, etc., and transmit large amounts of data at high speeds. This technology has the potential to revolutionize the way and speed with which we collect, analyze and act on ocean data.
Planblue GMBH builds “underwater satellites” to generate highly detailed maps of the sea floor. With the assistance of machine learning, these maps can be augmented with precise estimates of the coverage and health of marine habitats like seagrass and coral.
Advanced Navigation seeks to create a “drone revolution” with its Hydrus underwater drone. This device features state-of-the-art maritime technology that, combined with its high portability and affordability, will make subsea robotics accessible to more people and companies than ever before.
BIOCEANOR combines the best of marine biology and data science to provide water quality insights that the aquaculture industry can use to optimize its operations. Their AquaReal service is the first in the world to provide advanced dissolved oxygen forecasting up to 48hrs in advance.
SeaSketch – is a powerful, unparalleled and open-source tool for ocean planning developed by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis based at the University of California Santa Barbara. SeaSketch allows communities of any scale to identify important or valuable ocean places, what they do (e.g., fish), how they do it (e.g., what gear), what they may extract (e.g., what species) and the relative value (monetary, spiritual, time spent) of each space they draw.
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Read More »Dolphin Wearables Support Marine Research and Conservation
December 29th, 2022
Via Futurity, a report on how new wearable sensors for dolphins could reveal the cost of human disturbances in marine habitats:
Human disturbances in dolphin habitat include climate change, overfishing, and noise pollution from construction, oil exploration, and navy sonar activity. These disturbances can interrupt important animal behavior like foraging for fish and socializing, but measuring disturbance is difficult under water.
Devices very similar to fitness trackers used by humans—known as biologging tags—are used in biology research but estimating the energetic cost of swimming has been challenging. With custom biologging tags, the engineers now are able to measure animal movement during thousands of strokes as they swim.
“Our goal is to use tag data to estimate foraging events, how many fish were consumed during a day, and connect that to estimates of how much energy dolphins use during the movement required to catch those fish,” says Alex Shorter, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan and senior author of a paper in the Journal of Experimental Biology on the work.
“This is important for conservation because we can then use our approach to estimate energetic costs when these animals are disturbed.”
In the new work, the researchers developed estimates of energetic cost from tag data by working with their human and animal collaborators at Dolphin Quest Oahu. In that environment, the researchers could conduct repeatable swimming trials over a range of speeds from multiple animals to generate the data they needed to estimate how much energy the animals used as they swam. Marine mammal specialists trained the dolphins to wear the tracker during lap trials and periods of free swimming.
The tag sits between the blowhole and dorsal fin of the dolphin, attached with suction cups, where it noninvasively measures speed, temperature, pressure, and movement. Six dolphins participated in the work, and just as in data collection with humans, the animals were free to decline to participate in the work at any time.
During the prescribed lap trials, the animals started from rest at a floating dock and swam an 80-meter lap underwater around one of the marine mammal specialists and back to the dock at speeds of up to 21 kilometers per hour (13 miles per hour). During free swimming, in which the dolphins received no instructions, tags tracked movement for periods that ranged from 9.5 to 24 hours. One of the dolphins tracked for a 24-hour period swam over 70 kilometers (43.5 miles), and these data were used for a case study of daily activity and energetic cost for a bottlenose dolphin. Importantly, these findings can extend to tag data from animals in the wild.
“Our tag-based method is universally applicable to both animals in managed and wild settings, and can lead to a host of new research in monitoring the physical well-being of dolphin populations, which in turn will inform how we as humans are affecting their travel patterns, feeding requirements and lives in general,” says Joaquin Gabaldon, a postdoctoral researcher in robotics and first author of the study.
“From a technological perspective, it is our hope that other researchers see the potential of dedicated on-tag speed sensing, and pursue the development of more adaptable speed sensors to enable energetics monitoring for a wider variety of marine animals,” Gabaldon says.
Collaborators at Loggerhead Instruments, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, and Aarhus University in Denmark contributed to making the sensors.
The study had support from the Office of Naval Research, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and the University of Michigan.
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