Coral settlement module prototypes are installed by a Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology diver. Courtesy photo/the R3D Consortium

Scientist Ben Jones plans to grow dozens of species of coral in a project designed to build an engineered coral reef ecosystem in Kailua Bay on Oahu, and his work might have practical applications for reefs on Maui.

“We want to make sure we have biodiversity,” said Jones, director of Ocean Science and Technology at the Applied Research Laboratory at the University of Hawaii.

Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency and spearheaded by the research laboratory, the $25 million research venture is scheduled to be built in the ocean at Ulupa’u Crater at the tip of Mokapu Peninsula in Kailua Bay. Jones said the underwater site is in an area not used by surfers.

Ben Jones

The project will include placing concrete structures underwater. It is aimed at reducing the coastal erosion of a road between a school and residences within the Marine Corps Base Hawaii and promoting coral growth, he said.

The results may be eventually applied to larger areas facing coastal erosion in Hawaii in what has been described by Jones as “rapid resilient reefs for coastal defense,” which includes an integrated ecosystem-level approach to design and build a living coastal-protection system.

Jones said the large precast structures used as a base to grow the coral are made of a combination of precast concrete, including concrete structures with a glass fiber rebar.

Jones said glass fiber rebars, rather than steel or iron rebars, are put into some of the concrete structures as reinforcement and to extend their life so the rebars won’t corrode during a span of 50 to 100 years.

This diagrammatic shows how a concrete reef is going to be deployed off the Mokapu Peninsula on Oahu. Courtesy photo/the R3D Consortium

The five-year project is still going through federal and state permit review, but it would include the installation of 60 structures and the scientific monitoring for two years to review its impact.

Jones said the selected site has some living coral and sufficient wave energy to test the effectiveness of the coral growing structures — a place with persistent trade swells but not one that has the full brunt of North Shore waves.

He said structures were designed to recruit coral from nearby living populations as well.