One of the parts most damaged by the current rate of climate change is Earth’s bodies of water. Scientific forecasts have estimated that in the next century, almost all coral reef habitats on our planet will be decimated. This is largely due to continuing ocean acidification among other practices done by humans, which all drastically destroy our coral reefs and underwater ecosystems.

What is Smart Mooring?

Measuring the impact of today’s global climate crisis becomes more difficult when we’re talking about bodies of water, and even more so, seas and oceans. Scientists and technologists have started to use physical oceanographic moorings as a way to monitor and collate information about the physical characteristics of a specific body of water. Today, it is used to measure water temperature, salinity, and currents.

Thanks to today’s technological advancements, smart mooring has now been gaining traction as a more efficient and data-driven tool for this. A lot of private science and technology companies have continued to develop marine weather sensor networks that are able to provide optimal power and connectivity to gather ocean and weather data in real-time.

Currently, these companies are working towards increased accessibility for concerned citizens who can help in monitoring local coral reefs and marine ecosystems.

One of the innovations brought by smart mooring is what satellite data and traditional data logging previously lacked – the capacity to collect real-time information from deep below the surface. Because of this, valuable insight is more accessible to scientists and analysts, which becomes most especially important in ongoing studies about the concrete impact of climate change on bodies of water today.

In this article, let’s take a look at some of the benefits of using smart mooring as a way to monitor the effects of climate change.

Smart mooring
A smart mooring bollard in the port of Rotterdam. Image Source: Heavy Lift News

3 Benefits of Using Smart Mooring

1. Fast and secure real-time data

Precisely because of more technologically advanced devices, smart mooring systems enable real-time monitoring without the risk of losing data due to device loss or failure since data is immediately accessible to its users. It is not limited by power or data storage constraints either.

2. Easy to deploy

Given its developmental objective to become increasingly accessible to the public, smart mooring systems are actually very simplified devices that are usually bundled together by just a single cable.

It is lighter than traditional data loggers. It is also small enough to be able to fit on a small boat. Because of this, it becomes easier to deploy on any body of water. It also becomes easier to transfer or transport to other areas in need.

3. Customizable and dynamic

One of the main things that make this mooring system “smart” is the fact that it is configurable and modifiable based on the needs of each study. The sensor nodes most smart mooring systems have are changeable and may even provide suggestions based on the monitored behavior of moored vessels. With the data it logs, it is able to build informed insights as to what is more appropriate for physical and environmental circumstances.

The future of saving coral reefs with smart mooring

A more efficient means to collate data and come up with better insights is just the first step to resolving the global climate crisis. If our communities are dedicated to saving and nurturing the life of our marine ecosystems, we must use these data and insights to strengthen concrete efforts and action plans taken up by the whole community, country, and world.

One of the concrete measures taken up by state and local governments is the establishment and safeguarding of marine protected areas and marine reserves. This can be lobbied for and adopted to sensitive and dying coral reefs.

At the end of the day, the global climate crisis has reached a rate that is already irreversible and is in need of systemic and wide-scale change to mitigate. This is what’s critical about the fact that smart mooring – as one means to contribute to mitigating climate change – is being developed in such a way that sparks collective action by the local community.

This mass movement of citizens monitoring and brainstorming for the protection of our coral reefs is what is crucial at this point in time. This is what should be the highlight of every technological advancement aimed to contribute to combating climate change.

Chatty Garrate

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