The future of monitoring, here and now

The Transnational Red Sea Center had the privilege to present its newly developed Coral Reef Monitoring Toolbox (CRMT) to a high-level audience as part of the 3rd United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC 3), on June 10 in Nice.

The CRMT is a groundbreaking approach to coral conservation, a set of scientific programs using cutting-edge technologies designed to revolutionise coral reefs conservation policies, not only in the Red Sea but on a global scale. It aims at supporting local scientific and environmental practitioners to autonomously produce robust and comprehensive coral reef health data, readily usable by decision-makers to support more efficient science-based conservation policies.

The presentation given by TRSC’s scientific director Guihem was introduced by Ambassador Alexandre Baumann, Head of the Prosperity and Durability Division at DFAE, who highlighted Switzerland’s commitment to the conservation of coral reef through its continuous support to the TRSC. The event held at the ICRI #ForCoral pavilion took part in the presence of Dr Aiman Sulaiman, Commissioner for Environment of the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA) in Jordan, the first of TRSC’s partners in the Red Sea with Djibouti to implement the potential of the whole Coral Reef Monitoring Toolbox methodology.

At this stage, the CRMT is composed of:

The DeepReefMap programme, led by Prof. Devis Tuia, head of the Environmental Computational Science and Earth Observation Laboratory at EPFL. It consists in using low-cost cameras and innovative AI technologies to map reefs in 3D and rapidly quantify coral cover and health across meaningful spatial and temporal scales. As an exemple, it enables to map 600m2 of coral reef per dive by two divers only.

The Environmental DNA metabarcoding, led by Prof. Loïc Pelissier from the Department of Environmental Systems Science at ETHZ. It consists in using seawater filtrates and low-cost sequencing to characterize marine biodiversity with high resolution and standardized methods. This non-invasive, time-saving method applicable to all habitats helps detect and monitor both common and rare species of fish, corals and echinoderms.

The Environmental parameters recording programme, led by TRSC at EPFL. It consists in using innovative and cost-effective in situ data loggers to monitor environmental conditions of reef waters at multiple depths such as temperature, salinity, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, net productivity, etc.

Marine Pollution programme, led by the Central Environmental Laboratory at EPFL. It consists in using cutting-edge technologies to detect and quantify marine pollutants – including inorganics (e.g. heavy metal), organics (e.g. crude oil), and microplastics at high resolution by sampling seawater, sediment and marine sponges.

As of June 2025, some first scientists and conservationists not only from Jordan from Jordan and Djibouti, but also from Eritrea, Sudan and Yemen have been partially or fully trained and equipped to use the CRMT. More are to follow in the upcoming months and years.