Coralations - Space Apps Challenge

Coralations| Quiet Planet

Quiet Planet

The COVID-19 outbreak and the resulting social distancing recommendations and related restrictions have led to numerous short-term changes in economic and social activity around the world, all of which may have impacts on our environment. Your challenge is to use space-based data to document the local to global environmental changes caused by COVID-19 and the associated societal responses.

Coralations - Coral Bleaching Observatory & COVID-19 Impact on Coral Health

Summary

Coral reefs are responsible for feeding 500 million people worldwide (NOAA, 2012). Due to global warming, corals - symbioses of zooxanthellae and polyps - overheat and eliminate a large number of algae in a harmful process known as coral bleaching, affecting satellite measurements of local Chlorophyll Concentration OC3 (NASA, 2006).Carbon Dioxide levels have decreased by 17% (Nature, 2020) because of COVID-19’s social isolation, affecting sea temperatures. Through NASA’s SeaDAS and AquaMODIS, we analyzed these effects and monitored Chlorophyll Concentration OC3 in 5 coral reefs, tracking their bleaching rates. Finally, we developed a near-real-time coral-watching platform to bring awareness

How We Addressed This Challenge

Our project is part of the Quiet Place challenge for it uses space-related information (satellite data) to analyze the environmental effects in coral health associated with COVID-19 social isolation - which led to decreases in industrial and urban activities, therefore reducing atmospheric CO2 levels. Not only that, but our project also expands beyond the temporary need to address this question, working as a full-time coral observatory, which can be useful for educational, research, and government purposes.

How We Developed This Project

Our inspiration came from the social and environmental importance of coral reefs. As a group of environmentalists, we already had knowledge of the relevance of these magnificent natural assets in the fight for poverty and hunger - around 500 million lives strongly depend on coral fishing (NOAA,2017) - but in preserving species that are already at harm. Not only that, but they also play an essential economic part, mobilizing over $375 billion dollars each year (NOAA, 2012)

Coral bleaching is the most threatening human-caused effect on water environments, which has faced severe ecosystemic death since 1998 (AIMS, 1998). Currently, the world has no such global real-time database display on coral bleaching, which makes tracking down phenomena like COVID-19 social isolation effects impossible.

When corals, which are symbioses of zooxanthellae and polyps, overheat, they tend to eliminate a large number of algae - leading to a great decrease in satellite measures of chlorophyll concentration OC3 (NASA, 2006) - causing the ecosystem’s starvation. However, with COVID-19’s social isolation, CO2 levels have generally decreased by 17% (Nature Climate Change, 2020), and these effects are expected in coral health. Our goal was not only to monitor these impacts but to serve as a full-time observatory of coral health.

First, our team started digging into NASA's provided tools while brainstorming with the bibliography (articles, science magazines, institutional reports, etc.), so when an idea surfaced we would not only be able to identify it, but also to make it practical.

Our team found NASA SeaDAS as the most suitable resource since it provides a complete analysis of oceanic waters through a good range of bio-parameters (including Chlorophyll Concentration OC3). We then established two objectives: analyzing the data in AquaMODIS and building the online platform to display it.

Website building:

The website aims at divulging the project and making the data about coral bleaching accessible to the public by using 3 sections: "learn more", in which we explain about the project and the issue we are addressing; "about us", in which we clear about the team and the Space Apps Challenge, and the interactive maps with information about the corals. The website structure was built using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. In order to speed up our work, we used jQuery to search for JavaScript functions which are interactive with HTML. The interactive map was built using Tableau and Mapbox. The first one was used to analyze and create graphics of the information provided by SeaDAS and AquaMODIS, while the second was used as a tool to add a satellite view and to localize the coral reefs from which we gathered information. Finally, the website contemplates a tab to promote some intuitions that support coral reefs, and to which people can donate.

Satellite imaging, research, and monitoring:

Comparing the chlorophyll concentration OC3 (CCOC3) from the Mesoamerican coral reef (Caribbean) for the month of April between the years of 2018-2019, 2019-2020, we found an alteration in the bleaching trend. While 2018-2019 had a mean percentage decrease of 22.7% in CCOC3 (0.885/1.113), which indicates strong bleaching, April 2019-2020 has actually found an overall increase of 4% (0.0921/0.0885), indicating a positive trend to coral health. January, previous to the social isolation caused by the COVID-19, had found a decrease of almost 50% (0.244/0.124) in relation to its 2019 counterpart, which strongly indicates the atmospheric reduction of CO2 positively impacted the Mesoamerican coral reef.

Utilizing the same methodology to the Great Barrier reef (Australia), we also found an alteration in the bleaching trend. While 2018-2019 had a mean percentage decrease in CCOC3 of 80.3% (0.59/2.933), which indicates strong bleaching, April 2019-2020 has found an overall decrease of 54% (0.27/0.59), indicating a slightly less negative trend to coral health. However, further testing seems to be necessary due to a wide standard deviation in the data. A possible solution to it would be the geo-section of the coral reef to improve accuracy.

The next analyzed coral reef was the Florida Keys (United States). In the April 2018-2019 comparison, the coral reef presented a decrease of 32.7% (2.10/3.12), while April 2019-2020 had a decrease of only 9% (1.918/2.10), indicating a sensible diminishment in coral bleaching. The conclusion is further grounded by the comparison to January 2019-2020, which presented an increase of roughly 20%.

Apo Coral reefs (Philippines) showcased an April 2018-2019 decrease of 14.5% (0.1994/0.2330), while April 2019-2020 presented a 66,5% decrease. But, when put in context with the January comparison has shown an increase of 50%, which might indicate inconsistencies in the measurements, creating the necessity of further research.

In New Caledonia (French Polynesia), April 2018-2019 presented a CCOC3 decrease of 57% (0.106/0.247) and 2019-2020 of 39% (0.064/0.106), also presenting a percent gap of 15% from January 2019-2020. Again, in this case, social isolation appears to have positively impacted coral health.

We can conclude that COVID-19’s social isolation has positively impacted coral bleaching trends worldwide, but there is still research to do in order to understand all the microvariations in each ecosystem.