Coral Reef Decision Support System
The Coral Reef Decision Support System (CRDSS) is a modern, scalable, and interactive tool designed to support coral reef conservation and restoration planning along Florida’s Coral Reef. Developed in collaboration with the Florida Fish & Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI), Nova Southeastern University, and The Spatial Collaborative using the SeaSketch platform, the CRDSS provides managers, scientists, and restoration practitioners with tools for viewing spatial data, filtering high-resolution planning units, digitizing potential restoration sites, and generating analytical reports.
During the second year of work, The Spatial Collaborative focused on maintaining and improving the operational CRDSS. Major accomplishments included continued infrastructure and Filter API support, updates to the HEX grid dataset, improved data visualization, refinements to the filtering interface, and expanded analytical reporting for restoration site evaluation. New report outputs included improved presentation of depth and vertical relief information, histograms, additional overlays, BCG scores, and a report summarizing the filters applied to grid-cell filtering outputs.
A major Year 2 advancement was the development of a data layer changelog and commenting system for SeaSketch administrators. This feature enables administrators to review changes to map layers before publishing, including information about what changed, who made the change, and when it occurred. This strengthens the governance and transparency of CRDSS data management workflows.
User feedback collected during training was generally favorable, with most system functions receiving high ratings. Survey responses also identified opportunities for future development, including improved printing and PDF export, personal data upload and visualization, larger legends, basic sketch annotation tools, additional report content, and incorporation of additional restoration-relevant datasets. These needs align well with the next planned phase of CRDSS development.