Sustainable Smart Campus Pier
Sustainable Smart Campus Pier
Most of us pass by the HKUST seafront without seeing what is happening below the pier. SeeSeaUST brings that hidden marine world into view. The project will transform the campus pier into a Living Marine Lab using underwater cameras, sensors, AI-assisted monitoring, and coral gardening. Through livestreaming and digital displays, students and visitors will be able to observe marine life, track ecological changes, and connect more closely with the coastal environment right below campus.
Untapped Potential
The university pier sits right above a surprisingly rich and diverse marine ecosystem that is currently completely hidden from view. Because ecological activities are currently sporadic and disconnected, this natural asset remains unmonitored and underutilized. The pier represents a rare, permanent, campus-owned coastal testbed that can provide continuous, long-term environmental data without the massive logistical costs of hiring external research vessels or conducting brief, manual marine surveys.
What will students and visitors be able to see or do?
Scan, View, and Learn: Anyone on campus can scan QR codes placed at major routes (like the Atrium or Seafront) to instantly access a live, AI-tagged video feed of the underwater reef, complete with digital species recognition cards.
Track Growth Over Time: Users can watch time-lapse videos that dramatically visualize slow coral growth and see active annotations written by student researchers.
Participate in Science: The community can engage directly through hands-on coral gardening activities, check environmental dashboard trends, and log wildlife sightings on a public citizen-science reporting platform.
How does this support a Sustainable Smart Campus?
It is Sustainable: Instead of just observing degradation, the project actively restores local biodiversity through a continuous coral nursery program using energy-efficient LEDs. It also operates under a strict "No-Dump" policy, ensuring all project hardware is recycled or reused at its conclusion.
It is Smart: The system goes beyond streaming raw video by deploying Edge AI that automatically interprets the footage. It tracks fish presence, evaluates coral health, and detects environmental anomalies, turning simple video into a smart, evolving environmental early-warning system.