The need for robotics and automatization to meet our global coral restoration goals
KAUST Research Conference on Robotics and Autonomy 2023
Speaker: Sebastian Schmidt-Roach, Research Scientist, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)
Abstract:
Coral reefs are vital to a vast number of human livelihoods depending on them for fisheries, tourism and coastal protection. Facing dramatic global declines in coral cover and reef habitat degradation due to climate change and other anthropogenic impacts, coral reef restoration has become imperative to maintain their ecosystem services. In the Kunming-Montreal biodiversity framework the international community set ambitious goals, such as restoring, or being on the way to restore, 30% of degraded habitats by 2030. However, meeting these goals is currently constrained by the high financial costs associated to coral restoration. The current realized median cost of restoring a single coral colony is approximately 15 USD. These costs arise from high expenses associated to maintaining landbased coral aquaculture facilities, in particular labor costs, and the high cost of marine operations culturing or outplanting corals in the ocean. Therefore, there is an urgent need for new approaches in robotics and automation to reduce costs. While advances in automation and robotics in the farming sector can be translated to benefit landbased aquaculture facilities, marine restoration operations face many challenges due to their complexity. To be effective, any solution must be scalable, cost-effective, and suitable for different environments, including those in developing countries with low infrastructure.
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Conference:
The KAUST Research Conference on Robotics and Autonomy 2023 (RobotoKAUST 2023)
Organizing Committee:
Eric Feron, Shinkyu Park, Raquel Peixoto
Date:
08-10 May 2023
Venue:
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia
Website:
https://cemse.kaust.edu.sa/robotokaust
Organization team and volunteers:
Mohamad T. Shahab, Renzo Caballero, Angelica Coronado Preciado, Kuat Telegenov, Mohammed Aldosari, Katja Gorenflot, Jumana Alashi, Hanouf Al-Hattan, Rehab Ashri, Marta Golem, Adeel Akhtar, Jun Chen, Abdullah Alharthi, Altayeb-Moh'd A. Al-Shedayfat, Amin Almozel, Nawaf Alotaibi, Shatha Alzahrani, Lucas Câmara Dantas Bezerra, Salman Ghori, Arman Ibrayeva, Anton Kim, Bilal Maassarani, Obadah Wali, Joanna M. Ogieglo, Norah Alghamdi
The KAUST Robotics, Intelligent Systems, and Control (RISC) Lab:
https://cemse.kaust.edu.sa/risclab