Approximately one in four marine life creatures live in coral reefs. Commonly mistaken for plants, corals are critical animals that provide aquatic species with the food, shelter, and breeding grounds necessary for sustaining biodiversity. As climate change has worsened, coral reef bleaching has devastated millions of reef areas globally.  

In the last year, about 54% of all reefs have experienced bleaching-level heat stress that can lead to the mass mortality and death of living corals. The loss of living corals threatens the livelihoods of nearly one billion people who rely on coral reefs for food, medicine, and tourism revenue.  

The solution? Identify climate-resilient coral reefs and reduce other local pressures – including pollution, unsustainable and destructive fishing, and unregulated tourism. If carbon emissions aren’t lowered by 2030, an estimated 70-90% of coral reefs will die from human-induced global warming.  

Gathering the data to identify climate-resilient coral reefs is not an easy task.  It’s truly global in nature and requires scientists to use standardized methods and data platforms.  This all needs coordination in the collection, modeling, and action phases, or society will lose the opportunity to protect climate-resilient coral reefs through a lack of focus, not because there isn’t a solution.  

With such a pressing issue at hand, scientists, governments, and private companies must have a coordinated approach to saving the lungs of the ocean. Initiatives like MERMAID (led by the Wildlife Conservation Society), provide scientists and stakeholders with a cutting-edge open-source web application for collecting and managing coral reef ecosystem data in real-time, are championing solutions through PostgreSQL and AI.  

Concerned by the increase in coral reef bleaching and a lack of tech-enabled ecological data collection systems, coral reef scientist Dr. Emily Darling co-founded the initiative. MERMAID transforms low-tech underwater data collection processes into clean, global data by leveraging PostgreSQL, one of the most advanced open-source databases.  

EnterpriseDB (EDB), a PostgreSQL data and AI company is an official supporter of MERMAID. As the leading contributor to the PostgreSQL AI community, EDB recognizes the combined power of an open source platform (EDB Postgres AI) and the easy infusion of data through any cloud combined with the ability of Postgres to just about be used to solve any data challenge.  

“The democratization of data across users, environments, and applications is paramount in the age of AI, and even more critical when our world’s oceans are at stake,” says Kevin Dallas, CEO, of EDB. “With over 35 years of active development, Postgres is the most extensible and flexible database, trusted by millions of nonprofits, government agencies, and commercial enterprises alike. What we’re seeing here is that Postgres also has a powerful role to play in the future of our planet.” 

By using technology to identify, monitor, and advocate for the climate-smart conservation of coral reefs, MERMAID is cultivating a field-driven, community-centric, and human-centered product. MERMAID’s innovative solutions are powered by PostgreSQL, a leading relational database management system that is accessible, secure, and compliant across all applications. 

This digital transformation fuels the translation of underwater insights into evidence-based actions for fighting the coral reef crisis. As an organization, MERMAID is committed to doubling the number of identified climate-resilient coral reefs to catalyze a transformation to save coral reef ecosystems by 2030.