Case Study: The Nature Conservancy monitors coral reefs at scale with Picterra GeoAI

Revolutionizing coral mapping The Nature Conservancy's collaboration with Picterra

The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a global environmental organization, sought to protect and restore vital coral reefs, which are threatened by climate change and human activity. Their challenge was efficiently processing the vast amounts of drone and satellite imagery they collected to accurately map these ecosystems, monitor their health over time, and quantify the success of their restoration projects across the Caribbean.

Picterra provided its GeoAI platform to help TNC build custom detectors that automatically identify and map specific coral species from aerial imagery. This solution enabled TNC to process hundreds of gigabytes of data, successfully monitor changes across long reef tracts, and measure live coral cover. A key achievement was the creation of a single Picterra detector capable of identifying four different types of coral, revolutionizing their ability to track conservation efforts at a colony level for the first time.

The Nature Conservancy

Steve Schill

Lead Scientist in the Caribbean Division