WFCRC's Collaborative Beach and Coral Reef Registry

The Collaborative Beach and Coral Reef Registry is a scalable, ArcGIS Hub Site that allows users to interactively monitor Coral Reefs.

The World Federation for Coral Reef Conservation, a 14 year old 501 c 3 Florida corporation fully engaged in Coral Reef Conservation

Introduction

During the middle to late Jurassic, coral reefs began to appear in the Geologic Time Scale. The rock record is the Rosetta stone for the makeup of the earth’s geological epochs. Without the rock record we would not know anything about past environments, fauna and flora, cycles, events and so much more.

The parallel between the Geologic Rock Record and The Collaborative Beach & Coral Reef Registry becomes apparent in how events and patterns continue to reappear over time. This repetition gives us a better reference point for comparison and to identify better avenues to pursue. In other words, 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 predictability more reliable. 


Our Purpose

The World Federation for Coral Reef Conservation (WFCRC) is populating our web based ESRI knowledge sharing platform for publishing and sharing a more holistic view of the ocean's corals and coastal conservation efforts through multi-organization-open-source data sharing and the use of citizen science. We believe this will promote knowledge and change marine management along with an information exchange among local stakeholders in the project locations. Our current change model is designed for the Florida Keys with hopes to expand internationally in the future.

The success of knowledge based networks, supports broad public usage and can be broadly shared in a manner that is focused on local project areas. In other words, knowledge exchanges that are freely available for our members can reasonably address a broad range of priorities of local relevance spanning science, engineering, health, and commerce. Repositories with massive amounts of local knowledge could fuel the next wave of artificial intelligence exploration, driving innovations from scientific research to the commercial sector.


Our Hopeful Impact

We aim to support marine conservation, responsible repopulation of marine species, disaster relief efforts, marine specie and coral status monitoring, marine specie tracking, and peer to peer location sharing. Our three main intentions of this platform are:

1) To provide an educational platform to educators and the general public 2) To provide reliable, open-source data and information to scientists, conservationists, and changemakers 3) To encourage others to take action towards conserving coral reefs


Targeted Users

While we hope to engage all users of the Registry, we hope to appeal to these 8 key demographics:

  • Conservationists/Scientists
  • Park Managers
  • Educators
  • Beach Patrons
  • Surfers
  • Boaters/Anglers
  • Coastal Planners

Beach Decline Investigators with Drone Imagery


Benefits of drawing in these demographics include, but are not limited to:

  • Marine managers will have access to consolidated and up-to-date records of data for the benefit of achieving conservation goals and how to plan for see level rise
  • Eco tourism will drive a renewed interest in local conservation
  • Diver and outfitters renewed interest
  • Historic and current imagery, data, not previously seen by end users
  • Identify hazards
  • Restricted access areas (i.e., turtle nesting sites, jellyfish)
  • Wildlife sightings
  • A single source for coral and coastal data will provide a substantially better overall evaluation process
  • Observe historical records of various layers of data
  • Everyone will see current weather, wind conditions, wave and tide information
  • Local beach and coastal water quality
  • Strengthening and expanding the network of organizations working to advance coral conservation in the identified project locations (Florida Keys)

The Design

The five components in the Registry are: 1) Web mapping application(s) 2) Search and discovery mechanism 3) Field Maps for citizen reporting; crowdsourcing; and coastal planners 4) Real-time alerts 5) Content gallery

 1) Web Mapping Application

The Registry will contain dynamic and interactive web maps, based on the following pertinent coastal and marine themes, and subject to the availability of up-to-date data. *Disclaimer: The inclusion of the below list items are dependent on their availability.

  • Coral reef locations
  • Turtle sightings/nesting areas/marine life
  • Water quality
  • Points of pollution (coastal and marine)
  • Real-time weather and ocean data
  • Wind and ocean currents
  • Shoreline conditions
  • Erosion and beach preservation
  • Identify, photograph, document, and map existing shoreline features, conditions, and problem areas.
  • Oil spills co-located with coral reefs and other sensitive environmental areas
  • Ocean floor topography and ESRI EMU
  • Natural and man-made marine disasters including red tide, seismic/tsunami,
  • Floods, hurricanes, oil spills, ship wrecks, sediment transport, and other land-based threats, etc.
  • Satellite imagery and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s)
  • Georeferenced research, reports and documents related to coral reefs and coastal conservation
  • Hydrology for point source pollution and creating real time alerts for sediment/chemical release

2) Search and Discovery Mechanism

The search and discovery mechanism will provide easy and seamless access to all documents, images, and videos and other content from WFCRC and partners. It will support a search by:

  • Keyword
  • Geography
  • Content type
  • Date
  • Citizen Scientist

3) Citizen Reporting / Crowdsourcing

The WFCRC Geoportal provides an interface for uploading data/observations provided by citizens on selected marine-related events, situations or hot spots. This is by incorporating ArcGIS Field Maps to solicit information from the general public – namely “crowd sourcing” - by:

1. Uploading data/observations on certain pre-selected phenomena including air/water quality, beaching events, SCUBA logs, etc. thereby, offering true ‘real-time’ alerts 2. Displaying contributing citizens’ locations on a map with cascading details accessible by user by moving and clicking the cursor.

4) Real-Time Alerts

The Geoportal provides a Geo RSS-type application that inventories andreports on various coastal and marine alert systems by:

1) Showing various alerts like RSS, IoT, OoT feeds or other means from sources such as USGS, FEMA, DARPA and ARGO etc. 2)  Allow citizens to upload data/observations on certain pre-selected phenomena (air/water pollution events or impacts on biodiversity “hot spots”), thereby offering true ‘real-time’ alerts 3) Display contributing citizens’ locations on an interactive map with cascading details accessible by user by moving and clicking the cursor; 4)  Real time gaging stations release 

5) Content Gallery

This most relevant collection of articles and research provides the "canary in the coal mine" view of ocean decline around the world. All oceans are connected and what happens in one can and most likley will happen in others as well. The only borders or boundaries in the ocean are creaeted by us. These are not new issues but it does give us a better view of what has worked in the past and what has not. See how others around the world are tackling the same issue....Ocean Decline!

The GIS Process for developing the Registry


Approach

The  ESRI Hub  and Field Maps are identified as a suitable technology, owing to its versatility in handling maps, as a geospatial content management system that supports collaboration. Some of the major benefits of using The Hub are:

  • Enables the publishing of maps to the web without an expensive web mapping solution such as ArcGIS Server
  • Flexibility for accessing the maps, with options for opening them in a web browser, map viewer, or desktop; data published is in the cloud
  • Ease of building mobile and web apps that complement each other using “solution templates” that are easily customizable and provide targeted maps and data

Examples of the Versatility of the Hub

Drone Sites with Allen Benthic Reefs Classic Map Viewer

This map of Ft. Zachary Taylor in Key West Florida is just one of the proposed locations to capture drone imagery giving local residents, beach goers, park managers, coastal planners and others a close up view of the location of reefs off shore (in red) and what threats can be identified for coral reefs. In turn giving individuals the opportunity to be personally involved in reef conservation and to give coastal planners a view of beach decline and or sea level rise to make better data driven decisions now and for the long term. (Zoom in to see the level of detail.)

WFCRC Mangrove Areas v1

The ability to see citizen scientists or any observation on a map, in almost real time, adds to the real and relevant experience of end users of the Registry. Any inititative, event, research, photo etc., is viewable by all, if a location component is present, like a lat,lng location. In this instance our orginization (WFCRC) along with The John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park mounted a effort to jump divers into The South Creek to clean up the mangroves in the creek (in blue). The contents of the cleanup are avaiable to see in our M4O video for The March for the Oceans event.

Images like this one will allow for the identification of some polution in river systems

Windy.com: wind, wave, temp map & weather forecast

Also see the Connect Ocean Hub in ArcGis @  https://community-connect-ocean.opendata.arcgis.com/ 


Our Hopeful Outlook

1. Advancing the message of a strategic approach to coral reef conservation 2. Deepening engagement with the scientific and local constituency 3. Expanding knowledge base 4. Building and disseminating the tools necessary to develop and identify proposed project locations for a Registry 5. Promotional opportunities 6. Expand the remote sensing capabilities to enhance the drone imagery experience

The robust charter of the Registry, as well as the on-the-ground impacts achieved by a diversity of organizations/individuals and funding partners, represent a framework and set of tools that have a high likelihood of achieving conservation benefits in years, not lifetimes. Given that threats to coral reefs are only increasing. A strong, science/-based prioritization remains a critical need. Moving forward, WFCRC, coral conservation efforts present multiple opportunities for:

Multi Partner Approach

Multiple donors, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), national and local governments, and academic partners are approached to prioritize coral conservation investments and activities, including:

  • Ocean Rescue Alliance (ORA),
  • BAY PARK DATA SOLUTIONS,
  • Mission Blue,
  • Allen Coral Atlas
  • Project Aware

Contact Us

Thank you for looking at our newest program and evaluating a for use in your area! For more information or interest in collaboration, please contact: Vic Ferguson Director/Founder The World Federation for Coral Reef Conservation vferguson@wfcrc.org / 512.986.1902 /  https://wfcrc.org/ 

With the superior support and direction from our volunteer Management, Earth Scientists, GISP, Social Networking Personnel and Advisory Council, a unique avenue (The Reef Registry) for coral reef conservation has been developed and shared for all to see and benfit from.

Special thanks to our like minded friends for ther support and donations.

Beach Decline Investigators with Drone Imagery

The GIS Process for developing the Registry

Images like this one will allow for the identification of some polution in river systems