Arjun Nair

Marine Biologist | Coastal Reef Restoration & Long-Term Monitoring | Kochi

I’m a marine biologist based in Kochi, leading a coastal reef-restoration project with field sites in the Gulf of Mannar. My work moves between underwater surveys, restoration trials and conversations with the people who know these waters through daily use. I’m interested in what survives after the photographs are taken, which means returning to the same sites and keeping fairly unglamorous records. Away from work, I’m usually paddling, diving or sitting quietly through a Kathakali performance.

Lead a Kochi-based team working on permitted reef-restoration trials and long-term ecological monitoring in the Gulf of Mannar. Coordinate field visits from Mandapam, oversee underwater surveys and photo records, and work with local fishing communities and research partners. Responsible for field safety, project reporting and tracking survival across seasons rather than only at installation.

Based in Kochi, surveyed coastal habitats along Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Conducted benthic transects, maintained water-quality datasets and helped develop repeatable photo-monitoring protocols for rocky reefs and coral habitats.

Supported estuarine and nearshore biodiversity studies around Kochi. Collected field samples, identified benthic organisms and maintained survey equipment and field logs.

Marine Ecology, Coral Reef Restoration, Underwater Ecological Surveys, Scientific Diving, Benthic Habitat Assessment, Photo Monitoring, Water Quality Monitoring, GIS Mapping, Field Project Management, Community Engagement

Malayalam, English, Tamil — conversational

Help with small shoreline clean-ups around Kochi, including sorting and recording collected waste.

Back in Kochi after our September monitoring visit to Mandapam. Most of this week has involved matching photographs, checking site labels and resolving the small inconsistencies that become large ones six months later. Restoration gets described through planting numbers quite often. I find the return visits more useful: what survived, what changed around it, and whether we can explain the difference. Grateful to our field team for keeping careful notes even at the end of long, salt-heavy days.

We cancelled a planned survey this week because the sea conditions were outside our field limits. There was travel already booked and a fairly full sampling schedule, so it was not a convenient decision. Still the right one. We used the time to service equipment and review older transect images. A quiet reminder that a workable field plan needs room for the sea to disagree with it.

One useful change in our monitoring routine this season: reviewing a small set of underwater photographs together before anyone starts scoring independently. It exposes differences in interpretation early, especially where sediment or poor visibility obscures the substrate. Not a new technique, just a habit worth protecting when schedules get crowded. An hour spent agreeing on what we are looking at can save several days of cleaning up a dataset.

Spent an afternoon listening to fishers describe changes around two of our survey areas. Their observations followed fishing grounds, seasons and currents rather than the boundaries on our maps. We still need to test specific explanations, but those conversations are helping us ask better questions. I came away with three pages of notes and a reminder not to arrive with every gap in the discussion already filled.