How the Wildlife Conservation Society uses AWS to accelerate coral reef monitoring worldwide

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has developed MERMAID, an AI-powered platform using AWS technologies to accelerate global coral reef monitoring and conservation efforts.

• Uses AWS services like S3, ECS, RDS, SageMaker, and Lambda to create a scalable reef monitoring system
• Developed an AI image classification tool that can identify 54 coral reef attributes with 82% accuracy
• Allows divers worldwide to upload and automatically analyze reef photos in near real-time
• Currently has over 2,000 scientists in 44 countries using the platform
• Goal is to monitor 100% of world's reefs by 2030, addressing the critical threat of coral reef loss

The project aims to provide rapid, accessible data to help protect coral reefs and the billion people who depend on them, using cloud technology and machine learning to transform conservation efforts.