Laying the Groundwork For Coral Restoration in St. Croix

From September 7-15, 2024 , CRF™ Science Program Manager,  Alex Neufeld, and CRF™ Director of Restoration Strategy, Jessica Levy, visited our St. Croix satellite program to assist with photomosaic operations and restoration planning on Long Reef.  

Divers scouted habitats along Long Reef for suitable restoration areas, noting the baseline populations of key coral species like Acropora palmata. Credit: Alex Neufeld for CRF™

Long Reef is one of six priority sites listed in the Virgin Islands Coral Reef Restoration Plan, an initiative published in 2023 by the Virgin Islands Restoration of Coral Squad (VI-RoCS) who is responsible for coordinating restoration efforts across multiple partners in the US Virgin Islands. As CRF is the first practitioner to practice active restoration at Long Reef, the team swam the entire length of the reef to scout for suitable habitat areas for coral restoration before the CRF St. Croix team begins outplanting next year.  

After ground truthing the area, we worked with members of VI-RoCS to plan, organize, and prioritize plots along Long Reef where the CRF St. Croix team will focus outplanting for the next few years.  

Long Reef, delineated by habitat type (yellow, green, red, blue) and sectioned into segments (pink). This delineation helps restoration practitioners plan restoration operations.

With backend planning complete, the dive team then captured baseline photomosaics of several of the high priority areas. These baseline photomosaics capture the health and condition of the reef sites before any outplanting occurs, a vital step in monitoring the success of our restoration efforts. Photomosaics are captured with a specialized camera rig and two cameras that take overlapping photos which are “stitched” together to create one large photo of the reef.

A completed baseline photomosaics of an area at Long Reef. Baseline photomosaics capture the state of the reef before any outplanting occurs, allowing us to track the success and growth of our outplants through time.

We are utilizing Cerulean, a technology developed by the CRF, to handle all the mosaic stitching. This all-in-one platform simplifies the creation, storage, and analysis of coral photomosaics, making it more efficient to monitor reef restoration efforts.

The dive team swam nearly 20,000m2 of photomosaics during the site visit to St. Croix! Credit: Jessica Levy for CRF

After two days of swimming photomosaics, we successfully captured nearly 20,000m² of reef sites. These areas will be our focus for outplanting over the coming years. This visit has laid the groundwork for outplanting to begin in St. Croix soon! 

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