Earth Scientists use the fossil/rock record to tell “the story of the past”and shows the evolution of the earth, over millions of years.
The rock record provides detailed information about the makeup of geologic epochs. The similarity of the rock record to the Collaborative Coral Reef Registry is clearly identified within the ESRI HUB platform as seen in our Keys Collector.
Currently dozens of organizations are rushing to develop, populate and execute geo portals for various applications. Our focus is on pushing data down into the hands of the local casual end user that is himself, focused on coral and coastal health and monitoring.
The Collaborative Coral Reef Registry captures a more holistic view of coral reef and coastal environments all based on GIS platforms. The best results come from evaluating and monitoring ALL of the impacts on coral reefs, terrestrial, marine and human.
Many organizations have made great strides in capturing compartmentalized, Coral Reef data and deposited it in secure servers around the world. In most cases this data is not readily shared and in some cases even charged for.
Knowledge workers and end users would have to specially know where to look for these data scattered across the internet. A single source for coral and coastal data will provide a substantially better overall real-time evaluation process, with user friendly, interactive, scalable GIS Portals, maps and meta data.
Paleontologists can compare the features of species from different periods in history to try to understand how species have evolved over millions of years. And the same can be said for The Collaborative Coral Reef Registry, which is its digital twin that we create for the ecosystem we want to protect.
The Collaborative Coral Reef Registry allows for local events and participation by local constituents, threats and parameters over time to be studied in relation to many other parameters in a single location without having to use mutable sources and/or databases.
For example, with the ability of individual citizen scientist or the family on the beach, observations at a known location (lat, lng), will be able to make assumptions about how other observations may affect coastal areas such as contaminated water, sediment runoff, or the movement of the red tide, research or what happen there last year or earlier.
With digital stream tracing for location, along with alerts from gaging stations and other point sources of pollution and sediment release, downstream alerts are displayed on gis mobile maps giving local constituency a heads up on impending events. Beach goers would find this information helpful as they plan where to swim and/or gather seafood.
These are just a few of the relative impacts on local coastal areas, many more impacts will be revealed over time as this information is pushed down into the hands of the local end user.
Generations will be able to look back, in time at coral and coastal environments/data and make predictions based on past events.
Setting Data Free
“At the moment the geoscience community is really held back in many areas because we haven’t managed to set data free. It’s still in isolated databases, or even worse, in analogue form,” said Michael Stephenson, AAPG member and executive chief scientist at the British Geological Survey.
Data Types
WFCRC is consolidating specific data for specific locations, into a searchable platform for a deep-dive into the Digital Earth, described by some as a “geological Google.” Or, digital twins. Our working group is a collaboration of earth/coral scientists, data managers, coastal conservationists, coral restoration/planting coral, and GIS Professionals, and is creating a data model to share and exchange coral, coastal conservation resource information for our end users.
One deeply rooted concern is the ability to allow existing data sources to “talk” to each other and combine with RSS feeds, IoT and other relative threads.
In a world where everything seems to be connected – information, technology, and viruses – it only makes sense that earth science, geological and marine data should be connected in the same way.
The reality, however, is different. Marine and Geological data collected by individuals, companies and academic institutions across the world over hundreds of years is scattered across the globe and stored in different formats.
By mashing up mutable information layers, previously unknown events, trends/patterns and trouble spots become visible. Making this a decision based on real time data. The best kind!
The Digital Revolution
The world today is witnessing a digital revolution that will change history. We are able to use data to demonstrate the four-billion-year evolution and history of the Earth visually and using other people-friendly approaches,” That will raise the level of human cognition of planetary processes to an unprecedented level. And hopefully raise the awareness of the decline of 70% of the earth’s surface, our oceans.
The Keys Collector oceanographic observation Dashboard along with The Collaborative Coral Reef Registry, impact assessment on long term catalogued data and how the end user will now have access to a new world of gis data with relevance to specific locations’ like The Florida Keys.
With the new access that end users will have to this data, the ecosystem management and recommendations is aimed at evaluating how oceanographic observations and data, will best serve the Keys or any location.
“When the end-users have access to the app, they would be able to easily take a photo of the ocean and/or related material, relevant current events, submit their data, see their point on the map, and click it to immediately see their image pop up.
End Users will have an interactive map on their mobile device that’s simplified. I think that helps encourages collaboration of people to go out there and be more involved. You’re not just collecting data, sending it off, and then not seeing anything. You’re seeing data come in from local contributors in the projec location , which reinforces the fact that you’re part of this bigger local cause.”
Future research questions will focus on issues like: “would you be more inclined to participate in a conservation effort if you could participate digitally”, and “It’s not only about building the technology. It’s about knowing what’s coming and what’s possible for the future of this application and initiative.
This is about building an application built around a location for users to participate in an ongoing, long-term citizen science coral and coastal conservation plan.
During the middle to late Jurassic, coral reefs began to appear in the “rock record”. The rock record is the Rosetta stone for the makeup of the earth’s geological epochs. The rock record has led to the discovery and the understanding of past events and what may be in store for the future. Cycles are identified using the record, making predictably more reliable. Making the data gathered a real value to any registry, for any location.
There is an immediate and strategic need to better administer to our oceans’ health, coral reefs, and coastal environments. The goal is to make the objectives conversational and viewable so everyone “young and old, near and far” can address these marine concerns in a meaningful and objective manner. As believers in evidence-based science, we share the framework necessary to provide better data-driven decisions.
All projects utilize programs developed for and are built around an ESRI Geographic Information System (GIS) database that embeds ecosystem services into stakeholder-driven planning processes.
In order to better administer to the health of our oceans and to share our GIS knowledge with other like-minded organizations, The World Federation for Coral Reef Conservation (WFCRC), would like to extend an offer of association to participate in this exclusive coral conservation program. Everyone is invited to submit observations and be part of the solution.
We support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals SDG14 (Life Below Water) & SDG17 (Partnership for the Goals) with Voluntary Commitments since 2018 and continue to do so.
The R.E.E.F.S (Research Enhancement Engineering for Seascapes) Program is a global partnership supported by Mission Blue, local stakeholders, marine biologists, coral experts, and MPA managers in project locations to address key monitoring knowledge gaps in our understanding and sharing the science behind a need for immediate action and 1st response plans.
These issues require site-specific attention to maintain current levels of a reef presence and to prevent future decline and need to be executed in the necessary time frame.
The need to provide this information for decision-makers to promote needed actions for sustainable reef conservation is now and is necessary to advance the understanding, use, and conservation of coral reefs through an integrated program of excellence in data gathering/sharing, education, and outreach built upon active and long term partnerships with divers, conservationist, the science community and local governments. To share this information on a broad spectrum will give decision-makers the knowledge necessary to make better data-driven decisions. And has total allignment with The Coral Reef Registry, in content and framework.
Copyright © 2022 The World Federation for Coral Reef Conservation - All Rights Reserved.
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