[Coral-List] Toward a New Era of Coral Reef Monitoring
Andrew Ross
ross.andrew at mac.com
Fri Apr 21 15:07:06 UTC 2023
Good morning Jianna & all,
That quoted statement is broadly true & better water is certainly better, but there’s a lot of complexity, nuance & oddity to be considered as Phil has noted. The word “never” gives me hives…
I work mostly in & around Montego Bay, Jamaica. Some of our sites are quite yucky, chronic ear-infection yucky, yet the corals (including cultured corals) are doing fine but for the usual predatory/ecological imbalances (overfishing), which we can mitigate with hand-picking for the short to medium terms. These sites also appear to be partial SCTLD refuges, retaining species largely extirpated from this coastline including arguably/relatively clean-water sites. Next-to-no Diadema mortality last year, either. Others also report strong coral populations in chronically polluted bays - Hawaii comes to mind just now, but there are plenty of examples.
Hawaii might, but we don’t tend to get funded to formally test water-quality beyond temperature loggers. More & better data would certainly be better, and maybe not for the expected reasons.
Best regards,
Andrew
> On Apr 19, 2023, at 7:39 PM, jianna wankel via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
>
> "Everyone is focusing on restoration but corals will never thrive in
> polluted water."
> This stood out to me... The coral isn't the problem. It is the water. We
> should be working on *water* restoration. It feels very hopeless. What can
> I do as a young scientist?
>
> Jianna
>
> On Wed, Apr 19, 2023 at 10:23 AM Douglas Fenner via Coral-List <
> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
>
>> Phil,
>> THANK YOU!!! You hit the nail on the head. Scientists and agencies
>> want to get attention and funding, and the way to do that is with shinny
>> toys. Preferably expensive. In other words, technology. But the things
>> that must be changed to save reefs require hard work with humans that don't
>> want to change the things they are doing that are destroying the reefs.
>> The big exception is probably global warming, where big technology, not
>> having to do with coral reefs is needed to make the changes. Things like
>> renewable energy, electric cars, etc.
>> Cheers, Doug
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 18, 2023 at 4:59 AM Phillip Dustan via Coral-List <
>> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Amy,
>>> Your team is organizing an amazing array of instrumentation to dial in
>>> coral reef condition. The real question is what is going to be done
>> about a
>>> degrading reef when it is revealed.
>>> In general, when people hear that a reef is being monitored they think
>> some
>>> remedial action will be triggered to "fix the problem".
>>> As valuable as reefs are to humankind you'd think this might be the case
>>> but in fact, history shows it has not been.
>>> Take the Florida Keys for example. This reef system has been under attack
>>> by humans for at least 100 years.
>>> John Pennekamp's work got a small section of Key Largo "protected" which
>>> resulted in hoards of divers dissenting upon the reefs.
>>> In the 1970's thousands of anchors were ravaging the reefs and it took
>> the
>>> work of individuals to create serviceable moorings buoys.
>>> The creation of a Marine Sanctuary increased business.
>>> But we all knew it was the increasing sewage that was causing the major
>>> problems but
>>> Then the major herbivores dropped out and the weeds, fertilized by
>> sewage,
>>> began to over grow the reef.
>>> Individual people started monitoring in the 70's and a Keyswide
>> monitoring
>>> system was put in place in the mid 1990's
>>> The investigators measured a 38 percent loss of coral cover and 400%
>>> increase in stations with disease in 4 calendar years.
>>> Coral cover on reefs where monitoring had begun in the 1970's was
>> showing a
>>> 90%+ loss in coral cover.
>>> Business continued to BOOM and the reefs continued to die.
>>> Now the loss is blamed on climate change whereas, truth be told, most of
>>> the death happened before climate change began to be a factor.
>>> The sewer system that was installed is a failure because fresh wastewater
>>> is buoyant.
>>> New diseases are so virulent the corals must be placed in rescue aquaria
>>> away from the reef.
>>> Everyone is focusing on restoration but corals will never thrive in
>>> polluted water.
>>> A few years ago I was visiting DIscovery Bay where I had worked years
>>> before.
>>> ( see https://biospherefoundation.org/project/coral-reef-change/)
>>> I told Leslie I was interested in how the reef had changed and he said,
>>> "Phil, you don't have to dive to see the reef is dying, just look out and
>>> see it's dark brown when it used to be golden".
>>> So while we can build better gizzies to follow the dying reefs in ever
>>> greater detail, unless we generate the political will to act it is all in
>>> vain.
>>> Maybe we should spend our energies and ever decreasing budgets on
>> altering
>>> human behaviors instead of building newer, faster, better resolving
>>> platforms to watch the war in ever greater detail.
>>> Most nations do not have the resources of a Wood's Hole or Scripps
>>> Institute of Oceanography, or the need for nextgen monitoring platforms.
>>> They need help with food, healthcare, sewage treatment, and education.
>>> My friends and colleagues know I love technology and was one of the first
>>> to monitor coral reefs using lines,video, and even satellites, but this
>> is
>>> not going to help the reefs anymore.
>>> They are way past needing monitoring.
>>> They need simple help: clean water, reduced pollution, reduced fishing
>>> pressure, less tourists, and a cooler, higher pH ocean.
>>> So congrats on developing a nexgen monitoring system but you may be
>> wasting
>>> your energy on something that is necessarily over complex and will not
>>> accomplish what is needed.
>>> Simply put, the very adaptations that have enabled coral reefs to thrive
>> in
>>> the clear, nutrient poor tropical seas makes them vulnerable to human
>>> activities.
>>> They are complex processes operating at levels of ecological efficiency
>>> humans should strive to emulate- That would be true sustainability!
>>> But, sadly, coral reefs will probably not thrive again until humans are
>>> gone.
>>> Phil
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Leslie, the retire gardener and I were sitting in the
>>> breezeway reliving old times
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Apr 15, 2023 at 9:19 AM Amy Apprill via Coral-List <
>>> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hello Coral List,
>>>>
>>>> Our team is pleased to share a new open-access perspective paper titled
>>>> ‘Towards a New Era of Coral Reef Monitoring’ published in Environmental
>>>> Science & Technology (2023, 57, 5117-5124).
>>>>
>>>> Link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.est.2c05369
>>>>
>>>> Abstract: Coral reefs host some of the highest concentrations of
>>>> biodiversity and economic value in the oceans, yet these ecosystems are
>>>> under threat due to climate change and other human impacts. Reef
>>> monitoring
>>>> is routinely used to help
>>>> prioritize reefs for conservation and evaluate the success of
>>> intervention
>>>> efforts. Reef status and health are most frequently characterized using
>>>> diver-based surveys, but the inherent limitations of these methods mean
>>>> there is a growing need for
>>>> advanced, standardized, and automated reef techniques that capture the
>>>> complex nature of the ecosystem. Here we draw on experiences from our
>> own
>>>> interdisciplinary research programs to describe advances in in situ
>>>> diver-based and autonomous reef monitoring. We present our vision for
>>>> integrating interdisciplinary measurements for select “case-study”
>> reefs
>>>> worldwide and for
>>>> learning patterns within the biological, physical, and chemical reef
>>>> components and their interactions. Ultimately, these efforts could
>>> support
>>>> the development of a scalable and standardized suite of sensors that
>>>> capture and relay key data to assist in categorizing reef health. This
>>>> framework has the potential to provide stakeholders with the
>> information
>>>> necessary to assess reef health during an unprecedented time of reef
>>> change
>>>> as well as restoration and intervention activities.
>>>>
>>>> Best wishes,
>>>> Amy Apprill, Yogesh Girdhar, T. Aran Mooney, Colleen M. Hansel, Matthew
>>> H.
>>>> Long, Yaqin Liu, W. Gordon Zhang, Jason Kapit, Konrad Hughen, Jeff
>>> Coogan,
>>>> and Austin Green
>>>> Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Coral-List mailing list
>>>> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
>>>> https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Phillip Dustan PhD
>>> Charleston SC 29424
>>> 843-953-8086 office
>>> 843-224-3321 (mobile)
>>>
>>> "When we try to pick out anything by itself
>>> we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords
>>> that cannot be broken, to everything in the universe. "
>>> * John Muir 1869*
>>>
>>> *A Swim Through TIme on Carysfort Reef*
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCPJE7UE6sA
>>> *Raja Ampat Sustainability Project video*
>>>
>>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RR2SazW_VY&fbclid=IwAR09oZkEk8wQkK6LN3XzVGPgAWSujACyUfe2Ist__nYxRRSkDE_jAYqkJ7A
>>> *Bali Coral Bleaching 2016 video*
>>>
>>> *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxOfLTnPSUo
>>> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxOfLTnPSUo>*
>>> TEDx Charleston on saving coral reefs
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwENBNrfKj4
>>> Google Scholar Citations:
>>> https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=HCwfXZ0AAAAJ
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Coral-List mailing list
>>> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
>>> https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
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