Levitating Reef

I am paling on building a levitating structure that can be the base of coral growth. this Structure will have the overall density of Salt water at 25C° - wich is the perfect growth temperature for corals - allowing it to always levitate in 25C° water, meaning that with increasing water temperatures the artificial structure will adopt to increasing temperatures through adjusting the water deep its levitating in and allowing the corals to live. There are already tryouts of artificial reefs Structures , called coral balls that are being put on the ground of the ocean at hight that have the perfect temperatures, but my fear is that with increasing water temperatures those structures will not be deep enough anymore to hold the needed temperature and the coral on those attempts will die. We lost 29% of the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 alone and its prognoses that by 2050 95% of all the coral will be dead. That would cause an chain reaction that would not be able to recover for our nature or us humans. My Idea could have positive impact in short and long time.

Long Description

Floating corals:

When I first heard the topic of this year I already knew wich topic I would like to work on.

At the moment we are facing a global extinction of corals reefs – the Lungs of our Ozeans, The fundament of all life on Earth. It is estimated that bei 2050 we will have lost 95% of all the reefs in our Ozeans already. In 2016 we lost 29% of the Great Barrier reef, wich is representative for global coral bleaching.

Corals dont only take care of good water conditions in order to maintain water quality that can host life, they are also the main source of food, tourism and one of the biggest “Fighters” of global worming. The consequences of the absence of the reefs are unimaginable. The Reefs represent the main core of our ecosystem and a fall of them will trigger a chain reaction wich will bring the total collapse of it.

There are different companies world wide who try to fight this rapid process through installing Human made structures in lower water – were the temperature is still remaining cold enough.

For this attempt so called Coral Balls are but down in lower water and polyps are being grown one, hoping that corals will develop .

Looking at the current attempt of building those new reefs I have hope in a successful Idea, but it does not seem like a long term solution of the problem considering, that if the water is becoming colder again (best case) the artificial reefs will from that moment on be in to low water and the low temperatures will not allow them to survive. In the more likely worth case the temperature will keep on increasing, meaning that the artificial corals we be not deep enough in the water anymore to provide the Temperature corals need.

What is needed  in this artificial reefs is a nature like capability of adoption to its surrounding.

Since the corals itself can not adopt to the temperature changes it must be the Structure they are growing on. Therefore I came up with the Idea to build those structures through including hollow parts – “Floats” – that enable the Structure to float. If the density of the overall structure is the same as the density of salt water when it has 25C° it means that the structure will always levitate or Float in the perfect hight and perfect water temperature to maintain perfect conditions for corals to grow.

It would be a reef adopting to climb chance wich would give it the skill of surviving and continuing to fight against climate change.

I designed single floating modules that have this certain density, wich are connectable to each other giving the possibility of huge floating structures. Those structures no-one would need to take care of, they would take care of themselves building a closed floating ecosystem.

I am in contact with some of the artificial Coral Structure building companies and hope to win the award to work with them further to make the idea become true.