KUL07: ReefReflections: Visualising and Documenting Coral Health Through AI-Powered Coral Recognition

ReefReflections is a mobile app and platform for AI-powered coral reef monitoring that empowers divers, beachgoers, conservationists, and researchers to document and track the health of coral ecosystems. Users can upload underwater images taken with smartphones (in waterproof cases) or cameras, and the app automatically analyzes the photos using computer vision algorithms trained on coral reef datasets. The AI system detects and annotates key indicators of reef health, such as bleaching, algae overgrowth, sediment accumulation, and coral type, then categorizes each coral sample into statuses like healthy, partially bleached, or fully bleached. Each photo is geotagged (when location data is available) and stored in a personal or site-specific digital logbook, which records metadata like date, time, longitude, latitude, and environmental conditions. Beyond analysis, ReefReflections functions as a community platform that invites not just scientists, but also everyday divers, snorkelers, and ocean lovers to contribute to coral monitoring. Users can explore trends in reef health over time, share their findings, and collaborate on conservation efforts through the app's visual dashboard and interactive reef map. By transforming raw underwater images into structured, shareable data, ReefReflections creates a scalable, tech-driven approach to tackling coral reef decline while encouraging public engagement and citizen science.

- Upload underwater images of coral reefs (taken via smartphones or cameras).
- Use AI-based image recognition to detect and annotate coral health indicators (e.g., bleaching, algae, sediment).
- Log key metadata, including GPS coordinates, time, and environmental tags.
- Display results on an interactive dashboard, showing reef conditions over time and location.
- Enable user accounts or reef site profiles to build a shared database and allow community tracking."

- Image classification (AI/ML)
- Computer vision (OpenCV, TensorFlow, or PyTorch)
- Backend development (Flask, FastAPI, or Node.js )
- Frontend development (HTML/CSS/JavaScript or React)
- File upload handling
- EXIF data extraction (for geotagging)
- Data visualization (heatmaps, overlays)
- UI/UX design
- API integration
- Basic understanding of coral reef health and indicators