New funding for drone-based research

The Reef Lab recently acquired two major sources of funding for our new drone-based research projects.

The NSF Physical Oceanography Program is funding a project to use aerial Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) to study water flow over coral reefs. The idea is to combine in-water measurements of water velocities and pressure gradients with LiDAR bathymetry to "back out" the friction term in hydrodynamic momentum equations. We are collecting these data across a range of reefs worldwide to develop new algorithms for estimating bottom roughness. This work is led by Ph.D. student Brooke Rodriguez.

Louisiana Sea Grant is funding a project investigating the characteristics of restored oyster reefs that lead to successful ecosystem outcomes. We are using aerial LiDAR on a variety of restored oyster reefs across Louisiana, combined with wave measurements to identify the effects of the reefs on wave attenuation, marsh stabilization, and overall coastline-reef erosion or accretion. This project is led by Ph.D. student Avi Strange.