[Coral-List] ICRS 2021 meeting session: Can Coral Reef Restoration Increase Coastal Protection?

Nohora Galvis icri.colombia at gmail.com
Sat Sep 12 15:34:59 UTC 2020


No, when "restoration" projects allow destruction of coral reefs formed by
colonies 500 years old.

Nohora Galvis,
Director / Researcher
Fundación ICRI COLOMBIA
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El vie, sep 11, 2020 16:31, Storlazzi, Curt D via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> escribió:

> Steve,
>
> As to whether current restoration efforts are happening without first
> mitigating the stressors that caused the decline in the first place, I
> cannot speak to that overall.
>
> I also cannot speak to coral breeding and/or engineering - I'll defer that
> to others that know what they're talking about. I think something we need
> to keep in mind with such breeding or engineering is thinking about what
> species to work on/with. I've traditionally seen a lot of work of
> A.cervicornis, but the geologic record shows that it's not a very hearty
> species (Chuck Birkeland gives a great seminar on this), and more recent
> studies by Lauren Toth and others have shown that the coral assemblages we
> currently see or saw in the past few decades on many reefs (and thus are
> often the targets to 'meet' for restoration) are not the coral assemblages
> that existed for the previous hundreds to thousands of years that actually
> formed the reefs. Some interesting things to think about....
>
> But a number of us (USGS, NOAA, EPA, etc along with state, territorial,
> and local agencies) who make up the US Coral Reef Task Force are working to
> try to reduce both the global and local stressors to coral reefs to give
> the reefs and those restoration efforts a better chance of success. Do
> those efforts need more funding? I think one could ask, which of our (the
> coral reef community) efforts don't?
>
> Great points and things I think we need to think about.
>
> Happy Aloha Friday to all!
>
> Curt
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> Curt D. Storlazzi, Ph.D.
>
> U.S. Geological Survey
> Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
> 2885 Mission Street
> Santa Cruz, CA 95060
> (831) 295-3429 cell during COVID-19
> https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/curt-d-storlazzi
>
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2020 12:24:14 -0400
> From: sealab at earthlink.net
> To: Storlazzi, Curt D via Coral-List  <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Re: ICRS 2021 meeting session:
>         Can Coral Reef Restoration Increase Coastal Protection?
>
> Hi Curt,
>
> I have a few questions regarding your response to Doug?s post.
>
> From what I can tell, most restoration/outplanting projects in existence
> have not waited for stressors to be mitigated before moving forward. (In
> fact, my concern is that many do not like to focus on addressing stressors
> at all).
>
> You mention that in order for restorative efforts to have a good chance of
> success stressors need to be mitigated unless coral breeding/engineering
> has made the corals more resilient to those stressors?.
>
> This is exactly the problem as I see it - is the plan to continuously
> genetically design corals to withstand ever increasing stressors?
>
> I ask this because to me the lack of emphasis on addressing stressors only
> serves to reinforce the idea that we can engineer our way out of this - and
> that message only serves to delay the mitigation of stressors that natural
> coral reefs need to survive and flourish.
>
> It seems to me that restoration has all the momentum for funding at the
> moment. Wouldn't it make more sense to allocate more of those funds towards
> mitigation until such a time that restoration and natural recovery have a
> more sustained opportunity to succeed?
>
> Finally, I do mean to denigrate restoration efforts. Coral science is
> greatly enhanced by these projects, but in my humble opinion, some do a
> much better job than others. Those that do not (for whatever reason)
> emphasize causation are, in a sense, self-defeating and ultimately may even
> prove more harmful than beneficial to the end goal of saving coral reefs
> over the long run.
>
> Regards,
>
> Steve Mussman
>
> Sent from EarthLink Mobile mail
>
> On 9/9/20, 10:27 PM, Storlazzi, Curt D via Coral-List <
> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
>
> Doug,
>
> I whole-heartedly agree! Don't put canaries back in the coal mine. Thus
> one needs to determine what caused the coral decline in the first place,
> then that(those) stressor(s) need to be mitigated before any restoration
> likely has a good chance of success, unless coral breeding/engineering has
> made the corals more resilient to those stressors.
>
> My thought regarding coral reefs and coastal protection is four-fold:
>
> First, healthy coral reefs with high coral cover and rugosity (as would
> occur due to restoration) result in less wave-driven runup and thus coastal
> flooding. See Quataert et al. (2015).
>
> Second, green coastal defense infrastructure is much less expensive than
> gray coastal defense infrastructure. See Ferrario et al. (2014).
>
> Third, green coastal defense infrastructure such as coral reefs, oyster
> reefs, marshes, mangroves, etc can theoretically grow (not degrade as gray
> infrastructure such as seawalls and breakwaters do) through time if in a
> good environment, as discussed above, and generally are a net contributor
> to ecosystem health (as compared to gray infrastructure, which generally is
> not). See Beck et al. (2018).
>
> Fourth, the US spends on the order of a few $million/year on coral reef
> restoration, versus on the order of half a $billion/year on pre-disaster
> coastal mitigation funding and 10s of $billions on post-disaster coastal
> restoration funding after hurricanes, such as Irma and Maria in 2017. If
> just a few percent of those pre-disaster mitigation funds or post-disaster
> restoration funds could be used for coral reef restoration, that would be a
> huge influx of funding for restoration. And that's just public dollars -
> what about private sector insurers? If a hotel restores its reef just
> offshore (reducing its flooding risk), might it get a lower insurance rate?
>
> Thus if you can show coral reefs provide coastal protection at a
> management-relevant scale and in rigorously enough manner (e.g., Storlazzi
> et al., 2019), you might be able to create new funding opportunities for
> coral reef restoration to help increase ecological function, that, in turn,
> helps provide all of the other ecosystem services that average folks
> (non-coral lovers such as ourselves) crave, such as fisheries, tourism,
> recreation, etc.
>
> Again, it does hinge, as you note, on successfully outplanting corals
> (maybe genetically engineered or selectively bred to be more resilient).
> But it seems we can't scale up those engineering, breeding, and outplanting
> efforts (and likely mitigation of local stressors such as land-based
> pollution) without a lot more funds that it appears are currently
> available....so let's think about how we might create such funding
> opportunities.
>
> But that's just one thought....
>
> Stay safe and sane in these crazy times, amigo.
>
> Curt
>
> ------
>
> Beck, MW, et al., 2018. "The global flood protection savings provided by
> coral reefs." Nature Communications 9:2186.
> Ferrario, F, et al., 2014. ?The effectiveness of coral reefs for coastal
> hazard risk reduction and adaptation.? Nature Communications, 5:3794.
> Quataert, E, et al., 2015. ?The influence of coral reefs and climate
> change on wave-driven flooding of tropical coastlines.? Geophysical
> Research Letters, 42: 6407-6415.
> Storlazzi, CD, et al. 2019. "Rigorously valuing the role of U.S. coral
> reefs in coastal hazard risk reduction." USGS Open-File Report 2019-1027,
> doi.org/10.3133/ofr20191027.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
>
> Curt D. Storlazzi, Ph.D.
> U.S. Geological Survey
> Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
> 2885 Mission Street
> Santa Cruz, CA 95060
> (831) 295-3429 cell during COVID-19
> https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/curt-d-storlazzi
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Douglas Fenner
> Sent: Wednesday, September 9, 2020 3:03 PM
> To: Storlazzi, Curt D
> Cc: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] ICRS 2021 meeting session: Can Coral Reef
> Restoration Increase Coastal Protection?
>
>
> Wouldn't an important aspect be how long improvements in the amount of
> live coral last?? If people plant out 10,000 corals and feel good about
> themselves, but only 100 survive more than 5 years, was it worth it?? This
> is a question which it seems to me the huge number of enthusiastic coral
> restoration people are dodging, and I think it is a critical one. Bad water
> quality and mass coral bleaching can undo all these good efforts, and WILL,
> if we don't address them, and so far we're failing miserably at that. Isn't
> this fad just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic??? Cheers, Doug
>
> On Tue, Sep 8, 2020 at 7:05 AM Storlazzi, Curt D via Coral-List > wrote:
>
> Dear colleagues:
>
> We would like to draw your attention to a meeting session to address:
>
> Can Coral Reef Restoration Increase Coastal Protection?
>
> at the 2021 International Coral Reef Symposium, which is being held 18-23
> July 2021 in Bremen, Germany.
>
> If your work is relevant to this session please submit an abstract to
> ICRS20-39 under Theme 13: Interventions and Restoration via the following
> link:
>
> https://www.icrs2021.de/program/call-for-abstracts/
>
> Session Description:
>
> Coastal flooding and erosion affects thousands of vulnerable coastal
> communities and has resulted in hundreds of billions of dollars in damage
> during the past decade alone; these impacts are predicted to worsen with
> continued population growth and climate change. There is growing
> recognition of the role of coral reefs in coastal hazard risk reduction as
> they dissipate wave energy and produce and trap sediment on adjacent
> beaches and thus reduce flooding and erosion. Given these benefits, there
> is the potential to apply coral reef restoration not only to meet
> ecological recovery goals such as coral species and reef communities, but
> also to reduce coastal hazards and build coastal resilience to current and
> future storms. To meet and support these joint objectives, there must be
> rigorous, quantitative assessments of restoration performance, particularly
> for risk reduction benefits. This mini-symposium focuses on advancements in
> understanding the role of coral reefs in hazard ris
>  k reduct
>
> ion, including but not limited to (i) quantifying the roles of coral
> spacing, morphology, and attachment strength in boundary-layer
> hydrodynamics; (ii) relating coral species morphology, structural
> complexity, or reef location to change in hydrodynamic roughness or
> induction of wave breaking for different environmental forcing conditions;
> (iii) design and siting of reef restoration to best reduce coastal flooding
> for different reef configurations; (iv) comparison of natural green and
> hybrid gray-green infrastructure in relation to ecological and hydrodynamic
> change; (v) incorporation of ecological connectivity into reef restoration
> site selection; and (vi) cost-benefit analyses of restoration for coastal
> hazard risk reduction. Summaries of current local or regional-scale
> studies, including modeling exercises are encouraged, especially if they
> evaluate social and economic impacts of different restoration options.
>
> Please visit the conference website for more information:
>
> https://www.icrs2021.de/program/session-program/#c245
>
> Abstract submission closes 15 September 2020
>
> For further information and all updates, please visit:
>
> https://www.icrs2021.de
>
> If you know of anyone who might be interested who might not receive this
> notice, please feel free to pass it along. We are very excited about this
> session and look forward to your participation. If you have any questions,
> please feel free to contact us. We hope to see you in Bremen!
>
> Organizers:
>
> Curt Storlazzi - USGS Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
> Shay Viehman - NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science
> Mike Beck - UCSC Institute of Marine Sciences
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
>
> Curt D. Storlazzi, Ph.D.
> U.S. Geological Survey
> Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
> 2885 Mission Street
> Santa Cruz, CA 95060
> (831) 295-3429 cell during COVID-19
> https://www.usgs.gov/staff-profiles/curt-d-storlazzi
>
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>
>
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