Article
29 August 2024
Policymakers and marine park managers need rapid access to accurate data to inform decision-making. A jointly funded NESP Marine and Coastal Hub and Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef research team issussing citizen science to provide up-to-date reef health data across hundreds of reefs. The team is working with stakeholders to validate and analyse data from The Great Reef Census.
The Great Reef Census is one of the largest citizen science initiatives on the Great Barrier Reef. Over four thousand volunteer citizens have captured and analysed over 100,000 images from over 600 reefs. This covers almost 18% of the Great Barrier Reef. A much larger percentage than any traditional monitoring could do.
Led by Professor Pete Mumby and Dr Christopher Lawson at the University of Queensland and Dr Katie Chartrand at TropWATER, James Cook University, the Hub research team is developing a method to analyse images quickly and accurately. This is being done through Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology. This provides a dramatic leap forward in our ability to generate timely information about the state of the Great Barrier Reef.
‘Results show coral cover estimates from AI and citizen scientists are within 5% of the scientific experts. This is an amazing outcome,’ says research fellow Dr Christopher Lawson.
This means publicly collected data can generate reliable information for use in decision-making. This method is currently being used to inform Crown of Thorns starfish control on reefs.
