How 3D printing could help save Hong Kong’s coral
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But these corals are beneath danger from air pollution and swift city progress.
Co-established in 2020 by marine biology professor David Baker and PhD pupil Vriko Yu, the enterprise hopes it can help make corals “extra resilient” in opposition to local weather adjust.
Rock bottom
Coral reefs are underneath risk from local weather change and pollution. In Hong Kong, technology to regrow coral can enable “reset the clock,” according to startup archiREEF.
Baker and Yu have been trying to restore coral at Hoi Ha Wan Maritime Park given that 2016 in partnership with the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Section (AFCD).
The group wanted to develop a new “bottom” for the corals to improve on. Working with the university’s architecture section, they commenced acquiring an synthetic coral reef working with the university’s 3D printing facility.
A cuttlefish living in ArchiREEF’s clay reef tile exam web page in Hoi Ha Wan Maritime Park, Hong Kong.
Vriko Yu
When placed in the water, the workforce attach newborn corals to the tile with non-poisonous glue. The form of the tile will help the corals improve upwards, attracting marine lifestyle that construct their houses in the reefs.
Extra than 130 of these tiles were put in on the seabed in Hoi Ha Wan Maritime Park in the summer of 2020, and archiREEF was born.
Commercializing restoration
The 3D-printed tiles are just one small element of archiREEF’s small business design. After engaging corporate clientele and governments to sponsor a restoration undertaking, archiREEF will establish a web page for restoration, put in the reef tiles, and go on to control the web site for up to five many years, monitoring the advancement and the biodiversity of the reef.
Regular artificial reefs, this sort of as submerged concrete structures, usually exchange the purpose of the coral as a habitat for marine lifetime, says Yu, whereas archiREEF needs to provide a “foundation” for the coral to expand on. At some point, the coral will be solid enough to assist itself with out the tile — which can then be shattered by divers, or will by natural means erode.
A diver positioning a 3D-printed terracotta tile on the sea ground.
CNN
An ‘innovative’ technique
Nonetheless, Chui also adds that men and women need to be “sensible” about restoration and think about the cost and accessibility of technological innovation. Destinations like Hong Kong also require additional information on the efficacy of conservation attempts before it can be scaled in a meaningful way, she states, adding: “Restoration should really be the past resort we need to protect before we restore.”
Conservation for every person
Rescuing these reefs can assist maintain the planet’s underwater ecosystems, these kinds of as seagrass meadows, which advantage from coral reefs, and are crucial carbon outlets.
Fossil evidence details to corals living in Hong Kong for 1000’s of decades.
Phil Thompson
ArchiREEF continue to has a way to go right before scaling up. The team will observe the examination website in Hoi Ha Wan for at the very least another two many years to ensure the corals carry on to thrive and endure pure disasters, this sort of as typhoons. On the other hand, Yu says the effects at the examination web site so significantly are promising: in the initially six months of observations, four situations far more coral has survived on the clay tiles in contrast to common artificial reefs.
Even though archiREEF’s concentration is at the moment on govt and huge company clients, it hopes to a person working day interact folks in its projects, far too.
“Restoration is at this time limited to conservation researchers,” Yu says. “But if we’re talking about stakeholders, it truly is most people.”
