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As a team of marine biologists, assessing the health of thousands of square meters of coral reef can be a daunting prospect. Often, we have to monitor some of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet, and there's a strict time limit due to the safety regulations associated with Scuba diving.

Accurately measuring and classifying even small areas of reefs can involve spending many hours underwater. And with millions of reefs around the world that need monitoring in the face of looming threats to their existence, speed is critical.

But now, a digital revolution for coral reef monitoring could be underway, enabled by recent advances in low-cost camera and computing technology. Our new study shows how creating 3D computer models of entire reefs—sometimes known as digital twins—can help us monitor these precious ecosystems faster, more accurately and in greater detail than ever before.

We worked at 17 study sites in central Indonesia—some reefs were degraded, others were healthy or restored. We followed the same protocol at rectangular areas measuring 1000m² in each location, using a technique called "photogrammetry" to create 3D models of each reef habitat.

One of us Scuba dived and swam 2m above the coral back and forth in a "lawnmower" pattern across every square meter of this reef, while carrying two underwater cameras programmed to take photos of the seabed twice per second. Within just half an hour, we'd taken 10,000 high-resolution, overlapping pictures that covered the entire area.

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