KSLOF partnered with NASA Ames Research Center to use the foundation’s extensive high-resolution data about reefs to help NASA create maps of all the coral reefs in the world and track how reefs are changing through time, giving scientists around the world the insight needed to address the coral reef crisis.

The Space Act Agreement between NASA and KSLOF gives NASA access to the ground-truthed coral reef maps from the Global Reef Expedition. NASA will use these maps as training data, feeding them into its NeMO-Net neural network and the Pleiades supercomputer at NASA Ames. This system uses a combination of satellite imagery and groundbreaking underwater imaging technology to create detailed maps of coral reefs. 

With the information from the GRE, NeMO-Net’s maps will become more accurate, giving researchers and environmental managers better information about what’s happening to coral reefs and how to protect them at a time when they are experiencing unprecedented anthropogenic pressures.