The goal of this "challenge" is to gain global comprehension of the health state of present coral reefs and the possible trajectories these reefs can take, using reef monitoring and environmental (temperature or water productivity) or human factors that can change or enhance their growth rate. "100 Island Challenge" is interested in mostly three factors:

• ocean productivity (chlorophylle-A concentration)
• topography of the island (high island, atoll)
• human presence (uninhabited, inhabited, high population)

Throughout these factors, the researchers will follow coral reefs growth, the way communities interact and live together and they will try to reveal the main trends in the way these communities are organised through time and at the regional level.

On the field, almost 2000 pictures are snapped for a 100 m² zone, each site and time at two years interval over eight sites on each island of the challenge. These pictures are then used to build 2D and 3D models.

During this French Polynesian trip, the Polynesia Mana team was given the chance to test the camera equipment. For Gilles Siu, IRCP engineer, working with Stuart Sandin and his team is "'an opportunity to catch! Indeed, new monitoring techniques coupled to the computerisation of jobs provide a way to build better models of the environment where we work. This allow spatial and temporal exploration in details a single dive couldn't be enough to provide. Moreover with 3D video and virtual reality reaching homes, more people will be able to experience underwater marine life and thus will be able to understand and protect it.''"

Link to the you tube channel which provides various videos of 2d and 3d products: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR6xc-3SFGmqdYthU8VrgsQ

Web site http://100islandchallenge.org/