Coral reefs , beacons of biodiversity, house a quarter of all marine species and provide food and livelihoods to more than half a billion people worldwide, according to National Geographic.
However, these aquatic havens now face existential threats, including overfishing, coastal development and heat stress brought on by climate change.
If human actions continue to warm Earth more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial levels, coral reefs as we know them could completely vanish. Therefore, the need to monitor them has increased. Researchers are using data from Planet Labs, which operates the world’s largest fleet of Earth-observing satellites, to make the first global, high-resolution map of all coral reefs, reports Nat Geo.
The map initiative, dubbed Allen Coral Atlas, was thought of a little over a year ago but is coming together with urgency. The goal is that by sometime next year, the team’s algorithms will be able to identify and map entire regions worth of reefs far more quickly and accurately than originally thought possible. By the end of 2020, researchers hope to have every coral reef mapped in detail.
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