A public infrastructure for the future

Harnessing digital twin technology to support coral reefs and the millions of people who depend on them.

The knowledge exists, the time is now.

WHY NOW?

Coral reefs support up to one billion people, are home to one-quarter of all ocean species and, in the United States alone, create hundreds of thousands of jobs each year.

The 21st century has brought with it unprecedented global change that challenges traditional management strategies and threatens extinction of the Coral Reef Blue Economy.

New data and new technologies are being developed every day to address these challenges—and more are on the way.

Digital Reefs is the gateway to those solutions.

A digital twin is a digital replica of a complex ecosystem that enables users to visualize, explore, analyze, and interpret the system in 3-dimensions and through time. It also allows stakeholders to share and communicate information in an intuitive visual format, to make changes to the ecosystem and test out different management options, and to prepare for the future—wherever they are and on platforms ranging from a smart phone to a desktop.

Why hope?

Digital Reefs provides universal access to intuitive, interactive, actionable data and solutions via a common visual language

Leveraging explosive advances in computational power and cloud technologies, Digital Reefs is universally accessible to stakeholders everywhere, in offices, homes and out on the water, at their desktops, tablets, and mobile devices.

By creating virtual reality experiences with scientific data, we aim to bring Digital Reefs into homes, classrooms, and boardrooms alike, to transform the conversation around coral reefs and the Blue Economy.

We anticipate, within 5 years, Digital Reefs will be scaled up to create a globally interconnected Digital Reefs Network, making it the go-to tool for effective management, conservation, and restoration of coral reefs in the 21st century.