Leveraging emerging numerical models from engineering to support coral reef conservation

珊瑚礁是生物多样性的热点，提供重要的生态系统服务（e.g.protection从海岸侵蚀），并支持渔业。然而，他们也面临着前所未有的压力。目前的珊瑚恢复工作旨在通过协助迁移和进化来保护现有种群。然而，在辅助迁移的情况下，没有充分的指标来选择迁移的区域，动态流体环境中的传播机制在很大程度上是未知的，并且可能是为每个地点定制的。关于珊瑚苗圃如何影响下游繁殖珊瑚的存活率，人们知之甚少。苗圃的形状会影响剪应力吗？这是如何影响个体珊瑚的？人类活动上游，如土地开垦，如何影响电流和相关的喂养机制，或通过沉积窒息？虽然温度是一个主要的压力源，温度数据已被用于指导缓解工作，但其他压力源也会影响珊瑚，如降水、pH值、盐度和沉积物的变化。为了了解珊瑚礁对变化的敏感性，必须将许多因素纳入其中，从全球气候变化到地方气候变化。需要合适的数据和新的建模框架，能够在从厘米到数百公里的尺度上工作。加入这个项目，你的目标是为珊瑚礁保护提供定量和建模工具的一步变化。广泛的野外工作对项目至关重要，以提供不同比例尺的成像，开发苗圃和研究区域的高保真三维模型，并测量当地条件以约束数值模型。您将联合收割机与最先进的三维摄影测量技术和帝国理工学院地球科学与工程开发和使用的新型流体动力学建模能力相结合（例如https：//fluidityproject.github.io/，https：//solidityproject.com/applications/，https：//thetisproject.org/）。您将利用为工程应用开发的工具，开发一套面向珊瑚礁保护和管理的数值和建模应用程序。

Coral reefs are hot spots of biodiversity, provide important ecosystem services (e.g.protection from coastal erosion), and underpin fisheries. However, they are also under unprecedented stress. Current work in coral restoration aims to conserve existing populations through assisted migration and evolution. However, in the case of assisted migration, there are no well-grounded metrics for selecting the areas for migration and the mechanisms of propagation in a dynamic fluid environment are largely unknown, and likely bespoke to each site. Little is known about how coral nurseries affect the survivorship of propagated corals downstream. Does the shape of nurseries impact shear stress? How doesthat influences individual corals? How do human activities upstream, such as land reclamation, affect currents and associated feeding mechanisms, or smothering via sedimentation?While temperature is a primary stressor and temperature data have been used to guide mitigation efforts, other stressors also affect corals, such as changes in precipitation, pH,salinity, and sedimentation. To understand the sensitivity of coral reefs to change, many factors must be incorporated, at scales from global climate change to local. Suitable data and new modelling frameworks, capable of working across scales from centimetres to hundreds of kilometres, are required.In joining this project, you will aim to deliver a step change in quantitative and modelling tools geared towards coral reef conservation. Extensive fieldwork will be essential to the project to provide imaging at varying scales, to develop high-fidelity 3D models of nurseries and study areas, and to measure local conditions to constrain numerical models.You will combine new observations with state of the art 3D photogrammetric techniques and novel hydrodynamic modelling capabilities developed and used in Earth Sciences and Engineering, Imperial College (e.g. https://fluidityproject.github.io/, https://solidityproject.com/applications/, https://thetisproject.org/). You will leverage tools developed for engineering applications to develop a suite of numerical and modelling applications geared towards coral reef protection and management.