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UOG assists NASA team in mapping Guam鈥檚 coral reefs

UOG assists NASA team in mapping Guam鈥檚 coral reefs

UOG assists NASA team in mapping Guam鈥檚 coral reefs


5/16/2019

UOG and NASA team
Steve Patterson, Jarrett van den Bergh, Alan Li, and Ved Chirayath of NASA Ames Laboratory; Romina King of PICASC at UOG; and Jonas Jonsson of NASA.

The 91快播, as a partner of the Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science Center consortium, will be assisting NASA research scientists from May 8 to May 16 with a project to map Guam鈥檚 priority coral reefs using a state-of-the-art sensing technology.

The research scientists are from the NASA Ames Laboratory for Advanced Sensing (LAS) and will be using MiDAR and 鈥渇luid lensing鈥� to study two shallow marine habitats 鈥� the Tumon Bay Marine Preserve and the Piti Bay Marine Preserve. These data will be used to create 3-D maps with an extremely high level of accuracy.

鈥淲e鈥檙e going to come away with three maps of coral here, hopefully to centimeter scale, that will help us understand where coral is, how healthy it is, and how it鈥檚 changing over time,鈥� said Ved Chirayath, director of the LAS in the Earth Science Division at NASA Ames Silicon Valley.

Chirayath will be accompanied by NASA research engineers Alan Li and Jonas Jonsson, graphic engineer Jarrett van den Bergh, and safety officer Steve Patterson.

Members of the NASA Ames Laboratory set up an unmanned aerial vehicle
Members of the NASA Ames Laboratory for Advanced Lensing set up an unmanned aerial vehicle on May 13, 2019.
Fluid lensing removes the turbulent, wave-like motions that form naturally in the ocean in order to create a crystal-clear image of what lies underneath the surface. The sensors use the water surface as a way to magnify the coral through a series of shots over a period of time. This technology will be helpful in getting an accurate image of the coral reefs, which will, in turn, help research efforts toward conserving the island鈥檚 coral.

MiDAR is next-generation active remote sensing technology, patented by Chirayath, to collect multi-spectral datasets of these areas.

Sensors will be flown over the waters early in the morning and late at night, emitting quick flashes of light to capture imagery of the coral reefs. National Weather Service meteorologist Chip Guard will be providing weather and ocean briefings to the team. 

Data from the coral mapping will also be used in NASA鈥檚 NeMo-Net, an online game in which users assist NASA in classifying coral reefs and other aquatic ecosystems. Some of Guam鈥檚 coral are featured in the game. More information on the game can be found at www.nemonet.info.

The project is funded in part by NASA and a grant from the U.S. Department of the Interior Office of Insular Affairs, which was obtained by the Guam Bureau of Statistics and Plans in alignment with the Guam Coral Reef Initiative. The Guam Department of Land Management鈥檚 land surveying division is also a partner in the project.

For more information on the project, please contact Dr. Romina King, UOG program director of the Pacific Islands Climate Adaptation Science Center, at roking@triton.uog.edu.

 

In the News

- KUAM News
- Pacific News Center
- Guam Daily Post