Satellites orbiting Earth offer great potential to better understand the world’s reefs over time beyond the sites visited by researchers University of Queensland research has found PhD candidate David E. Carrasco Rivera from UQ’s School of Environment analysed thousands of images from 20 years of field studies and satellites captured of Heron Reef “Most of what we know about world’s reefs comes from field data which is done in less than 0.1 per cent of the actual reef area,” Mr Carrasco Rivera said “That’s like completing a full body assessment by only looking at a portion of your finger “Our study found using satellite imagery gives researchers the ability to continually monitor the reef and identify trends in the environment beyond the areas visited “By combining machine learning with the image data sets we created annual maps of reef composition over 2 decades “Satellite imagery will never replace field data completely but many reefs are too big and remote to visit every square metre due to research funding constraints and weather conditions.” Mr Carrasco Rivera used the field photos to estimate and map how much sand rock and coral was present in the areas where satellite photos were only taken Associate Professor Chris Roelfsema has led a monitoring program at Heron Reef that has been ongoing for more than 20 years He said understanding the entirety of the reef over time is vital to making appropriate conservation and management decisions “We look at ourselves in the mirror daily so we can identify small changes in appearance when we are sick we need to see it regularly to notice changes,” Dr Roelfsema said “Consistent and ongoing monitoring is a key contributor to understanding what a normal environment cycle is or if another factor is leading to changes including coral cover variations and colour “This review shows satellites allow us to do this with 59 to 81 per cent accuracy depending on environmental conditions “The study found satellite data was accurate enough to supplement field data for up to 3 years if researchers can’t get out in the water for that period “If you can only get out to a very small part of the reef and if you don’t have information before the event then it’s hard to understand the impact or to assess the recovery.” Dr Roelfsema said the study was possible through the facilities of UQ’s Heron Island Research Station “Access to the permanent research station meant we were able to consistently monitor the surrounding reef for 2 decades whereas many projects struggle to have easy access to the reef,” he said “These remote sensing findings have scope to benefit reefs across the globe as they continue to be impacted by climate change.” The research was published in Remote Sensing Images available via Dropbox +61 7 3365 1111 Ph. 3365 3333 Five Decades of Surfing, Travel and Narrative Collide in Sam George’s New Book Donavon Frankenreiter Cranks Up the Volume on Surf History Watch: Psycho Slab Cape Solander Goes Bonkers (Video) NewsAll News Events Big Wave News World Surf League Environmental Industry Wave PoolsPosts List Humble Hawaiian Charger Wins $10K & Wave of the Winter on Surreal Pipeline Chamber Former World Title Threat Wins Burleigh Trials, Will Surf in Gold Coast Pro The Gnarliest Bodyboarder You’ve Never Heard of (Video) Last week, the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) a global partnership and forum of 100-plus governments and other entities working toward the preservation of the world’s coral reefs and their associated ecosystems announced that it has recorded the worst coral bleaching event on record with 84% of the world’s reefs showing effects Coral bleaching is a broad term conceived back in 1998 after the phenomenon was first widely noticed—or at least seriously and widely recognized—that essentially describes critically stressed corals which turn white due to inhospitable changes in temperature and pH level The fourth global bleaching event on record since 1998 has just seriously outdone the previous event from 2014-2017 and affected about two-thirds of the world’s reefs This current crisis is blamed on the average of ocean temperatures away from the poles which has seen back-to-back record highs just at or above the 2.7-degree Fahrenheit (1.5-degree-Celsius) “warming limit” above “pre-industrial,” or average global ocean temperatures between 1850 and 1900 A.D. which calculated the highest of those numbers: 2.9 degrees Fahrenheit (or 1.6 Celsius) “We’re seeing forecasts that temperatures are going to continue to stay high,” Mark Eakin, corresponding secretary for the International Coral Reef Society and retired chief of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch program, told the Associated Press “We just may never see the heat stress that causes bleaching dropping below the threshold that triggers a global event so this may be the last one… We’re looking at something that’s completely changing the face of our planet and the ability of our oceans to sustain lives and livelihoods,” Eakin added What’s a lowly surf rat left to do in the here and now and manual and/or analog paddling of said surfboards may be about the best most of us can offer our great giver “The best way to protect coral reefs,” Eakin puts forth “is to address the route cause of climate change and that means reducing the emissions—the human emissions—that are mostly from the burning of fossil fuels Everything else is looking like a Band-Aid rather than a solution.” convoluted little term oft-hawked by libertarians and neoliberals Love or hate the ocean and its temperature-dependent multitude of critters continue to vote with those John Wayne dollars as always but it’s up to the nerds whose direction is at the discretion of the energy geezers and geezettes to sort out both us and our beloved reefs Strong correlations have been drawn between a rise in the population of sharks on Ashmore Reef off the north-west coast of Western Australia and an increase in other large and mid-sized predatory reef fish alongside the decline in smaller species The return of apex predators like sharks can restore the critical ecological balance to coral reef ecosystems creating healthier and more abundant environments a new collaborative study between researchers in the UK and Australia has found The study – a joint effort between the University of Glasgow, University of Western Australia’s Ocean Institute, and the Australian Institute of Marine Science – has been published in the scientific journal, Animal Ecology It details a project through which researchers analysed video footage captured using baited remote underwater video systems before the enforcement of the area’s ‘no-take’ status in 2004 when there were few sharks within the area This was then compared to footage captured in 2016 scientists discovered that small mesopredatory reef fish exhibited anti-predator behaviours – including less foraging for food – when they were under threat by larger predators An overabundance of any species can disrupt the ecosystem balance in a coral reef a large and unchecked population of small mesopredatory fish can have impacts down the food chain with essentially free reign to over-consumer young fish or invertebrates leading to the decimation of their numbers Under the watchful eye of an apex predator It’s precisely what researchers observed in the case of Ashmore Reef presenting their findings as ‘how reefs should function’ when they are in relatively pristine conditions UN deep sea mining body levels criticism at Trump administration How one Pisaster disaster left sea otters with a mussel buffet Physics of folklore: Seeking answers to the 'milky seas' mystery Global fish oil and fishmeal industry footprint exposed in world first Understanding seabird migration crucial to reduce extinction risks It all offers a deeper insight into the role that big predators such as sharks play in maintaining these ecosystems – essential information when it comes to improving the resilience and survival of reefs and Environmental Change at the University of Glasgow said: “This study really shows the importance of conserving top predators like sharks it restores critical ecological interactions that are vital for healthy marine ecosystems “Removing large predators and allowing mesopredators to proliferate can destabilize ecological balance leading to unpredictable changes in species abundance and interactions that can negatively affect overall reef health.” These findings have been echoed in a similar study spanning two-decades looking into the gradual disappearance of Great white sharks from False bay in South Africa Great white sharks have experienced a dramatic decline and subsequent disappearance over the last 20 years with the finger of blame being directed at a combination of factors including decades of unsustainable capture in nets and some more recent instances of predation by orcas In this study – similar to the findings in Ashmore Reef – the loss of the apex predator gave greater space to mesopredators which in turn led to the stark over-consumption of smaller fish and prey species It all illustrates the ripple effect that losing a top ocean predator can have on an ecosystem already walking a fine line of equilibrium Dr Mark Meekan from the University of Western Australia’s Ocean Institute said: “Reef shark populations on Ashmore Reef have increased significantly since effective enforcement of the no-take Marine Protected Area status of the reef started in 2008 “This has enabled us to examine how these large predators have the potential to structure reef communities through the behavioural effects they have on their prey fearful prey reacts to an increase in predation risk by exhibiting traits to reduce exposure “These responses can alter the prey’s behaviour so they spend much more time avoiding predators which limits the amount of time they have available for important activities including reproduction and foraging – when they forage they may be forced into poor quality habitats.” The work now contributes to a growing body of evidence to support the idea that predators have important indirect effects on other species in food chains by triggering in them behaviours in prey that attempt to lower their risk of predation The study – Recovery of Reef Shark Populations Invokes Anti-Predator Behaviours in Mesopredatory Reef Fish in a Coral Reef – is published in the scientific journal Click here for more from the Oceanographic Newsroom. Receive the latest from Oceanographic and get 10% off your first order Join our community and enjoy 10% off your first purchase Through the Mesoamerican Reef Fund initiative MAR+Invest the GFCR is providing technical advice and financing to 50 early-stage reef-friendly businesses from countries in the region The work spans 1.7 million hectares of coral reefs and is creating economic opportunities for 15,000 people. "Investing in local organizations with deep-rooted knowledge and experience in coral reef conservation is critical for protecting the Mesoamerican Reef and for achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals,” says Susan Gardner “These local organizations are uniquely positioned because people benefit directly from healthy reefs providing families with better nutrition and higher incomes education and building resilience.” One of the projects MAR+Invest supports focuses on raising juvenile king crabs and releasing them onto reefs to combat the overgrowth of macroalgae which thrives due to rising ocean temperatures associated with climate change have voracious algae appetites and can help control algae without harming coral their low natural population density limits their impact this project aims to restore balance to the ecosystem benefiting coral health and providing a sustainable income source for local fishers. To combat pollution, another major threat to corals, the Mesoamerican Reef Fund is helping the Royal Mayan Shrimp Farm in Belize become more sustainable Traditional shrimp farms often spew polluted water into the ocean and cut down mangrove forests Meanwhile in Mexico, MAR+Invest is supporting a company, CarbonWave, which turns a type of seaweed known as sargassum into raw materials for various products This prevents sargassum from smothering corals and wildlife or ending up in landfills where it decays potentially polluting groundwater. The die off has been driven by rising sea temperatures pollution and unsustainable fishing practices. The Global Fund for Coral Reefs is a UN-backed multi-partner trust fund. It provides grants and loans to coral-reef-positive enterprises worldwide, supporting initiatives from ecotourism to sustainable aquaculture to seaweed farming. The GFCR’s goal is to support over 400 reef-positive businesses and create more than 30,000 jobs by 2030 the Mesoamerican Reef Fund is aiming to leverage US$60 million in private capital and enhance the resilience of over 3 million coastal residents. Each reef-positive enterprise in the GFCR’s pipeline addresses threats to reef health while supporting poverty alleviation and contributing to the financial sustainability of marine protected areas “The fund’s projects show that even modest investments in biodiversity conservation can unlock remarkable innovation and impact,” says UNEP’s Susan Gardner “In the face of mounting threats to coral reefs this multiplying effect is exactly what we need right now.” The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework  The planet is experiencing a dangerous decline in nature. One million species are threatened with extinction, soil health is declining and water sources are drying up. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework sets out global targets to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 It was adopted by world leaders in December 2022 To address the drivers of the nature crisis UNEP is working with partners to take action in landscapes and seascapes The Global Fund for Coral Reefs (GFCR) was established to accelerate urgent investment and action to enhance the resilience of coastal reef ecosystems The GFCR comprises two major financial vehicles: a UN-led grant fund and a private-sector-led large-scale private equity impact investment fund The GFCR aims to promote sustainable ocean production spur sustainable coastal development and ecotourism forge circular economies and pollution management and enable technologies for a sustainable future. The GFCR-funded MAR+Invest program is led by the Mesoamerican Reef Fund (MAR Fund) in partnership with regional actors New Ventures and the Mexican Fund for the Conservation of Nature © 2025 UNEP Terms of Use Privacy Report Project Concern Report Scam Contact Us “The magnitude and extent of the heat stress is shocking,” said one marine scientist A year after scientists warned the world was seeing its fourth mass coral bleaching event rising ocean temperatures fuelled by greenhouse gas emissions have now devastated 84% of Earth’s coral reefs – with likely knock-on effects for about a third of all marine species and a billion people whose lives and livelihoods are directly affected by the health of the “rainforests of the sea” Unusually warm ocean waters cause corals to expel algae that give the reefs their bright colour and deliver nutrients supporting the immense biodiversity that is normally found within the reefs “The magnitude and extent of the heat stress is shocking,” marine scientist Melanie McField the founder of the Healthy Reefs for Healthy People initiative in the Caribbean “Some reefs that had thus far escaped major heat stress and we thought to be somewhat resilient succumbed to partial mortalities in 2024.” “The fact that so many reef areas have been impacted," he said “suggests that ocean warming has reached a level where there is no longer any safe harbour from coral bleaching and its ramifications.” The current coral bleaching event began in January 2023 scientists were alarmed by an ocean heatwave off the coast of Florida that rapidly bleached the only living barrier reef in the continental United States That event prompted NOAA to introduce a new coral bleaching alert scale from Level 1 — significant bleaching — to Level 5 at which point a reef is approaching mortality Another ocean heatwave last year threatened Australia’s Great Barrier Reef eight years after nearly half of the coral in some northern parts of the 1400-mile reef was killed by a mass bleaching event But recent major bleaching events affecting specific reefs have not compared to the current widespread devastation in the world’s oceans “With the ongoing bleaching it’s almost overwhelming the capacity of people to do the monitoring they need to do global-scale coral bleaching event is still ongoing takes the world’s reefs into uncharted waters.” The other three mass bleaching events on record occurred from 2014-17 with 68% of the world’s reefs affected; in 2010 a marine biologist at the Coral Reef Laboratory at the University of Southampton in England emphasised that taking action to stop the heating of the world’s oceans could protect coral reefs the marine species they provide habitats to and the communities they support by protecting coastlines and providing fishing and tourism jobs Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams Ocean Reef Marina Breakwaters project from WA Limestone and Italia Stone Group Joint Venture has been nominated as the finalist for the 2024 WA Earth Award DevelopmentWA engaged the JV to construct the breakwater and revetment structures with a combined length of 2km of seawall and 1km of revetment wall The work scope included reuse of existing breakwater material; placement of geotextile limestone core armour and granite armour; and excavation of dredging areas Material supply was the biggest challenge for the project with the management of importing 1.25 million tonnes of rock across more than 30 delivery sites impacting the delivery schedule The 2024 WA Earth Awards will be held on Friday Daily news and in-depth stories in your inbox Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time In the dead of the night a saw-wielding figure lurks in Ocean Reef – but the only victims that need to worry are the wooded kind with the potential to block ocean views 56 trees installed in four separate plantings at Tarolinta Park have been poisoned or cut by a brazen and unknown person or persons Stuart Trott called the vandals of 12 Callistemon viminalis (Weeping Bottlebrush) and 8 Melaleuca quinquenervia (Broad-Leaved Paperbark) selfish.Credit: Claire Ottaviano Residents fed up with the repetitive vandalism came out last week to discover someone had chopped 19 of 20 newly planted bottlebrush and paperbark trees – some directly in front of a recently installed sign aimed at deterring would-be vandals It followed the vandalism of eight trees planted in May 2022 and vandalised a month later 13 trees planted in July 2022 and vandalised in August 2022 and 16 trees planted in August 2023 and vandalised in November 2023 Stuart Trott said the issue had been a persistent pain for the 10 years he had lived adjacent to the park labelling the vandal “selfish” and “an idiot” “The majority of people around here are dog owners or they have children who would like shade in the park,” he said City of Joondalup Mayor Albert Jacob condemned the person responsible for cutting down new trees.Credit: Claire Ottaviano “I think someone is doing it for pretty selfish reasons – probably someone who’s worried about their view.” The City of Joondalup said each round of planting cost between $1500 and $2000 Unauthorised pruning or removal of trees is an offence under local laws with fines of up to $5000 Offenders may also be responsible for replacement and establishment costs “It’s a crime at the end of the day,” Trott said “Hopefully [the council] will persist and hopefully whichever idiot who’s doing it will stop.” expressed his disappointment and also speculated as to the motive of the alleged repeat offender City of Joondalup Mayor Albert Jacob said if whoever was cutting down the trees to improve their views “The trees that are already here are growing 10 to 20 meters the trees they’re cutting down are paperbarks and bottle brushes which at most grow to five meters,” he said Jacob said criticism connecting loss of ocean views to decreasing house values were invalid – as leafy green spaces were known to increase suburb desirability and value He also said the city “unashamedly” had the most aggressive tree canopy target in WA “The only way you end up with a leafy city is if a local government at a point in time says we’re going to aggressively plant trees and keep them here for the next generation.” City of Joondalup deputy mayor Adrian Hill said the city had not received any complaints from residents about the planting of the trees “People who vandalise trees are causing a loss of amenity and extra costs for our community by destroying community assets and write to nearby land owners asking for support to identify and catch the culprits and report offending to police The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here In the dead of the night a saw-wielding figure lurks in Ocean Reef \\u2013 but the only victims that need to worry are the wooded kind with the potential to block ocean views Residents fed up with the repetitive vandalism came out last week to discover someone had chopped 19 of 20 newly planted bottlebrush and paperbark trees \\u2013 some directly in front of a recently installed sign aimed at deterring would-be vandals labelling the vandal \\u201Cselfish\\u201D and \\u201Can idiot\\u201D \\u201CThe majority of people around here are dog owners or they have children who would like shade in the park,\\u201D he said \\u201CI think someone is doing it for pretty selfish reasons \\u2013 probably someone who\\u2019s worried about their view.\\u201D \\u201CIt\\u2019s a crime at the end of the day,\\u201D Trott said \\u201CIt is taxpayer money getting wasted \\u201CHopefully [the council] will persist and hopefully whichever idiot who\\u2019s doing it will stop.\\u201D \\u201CI\\u2019m assuming people who have a view I\\u2019m going to lose my ocean view,\\u201D he said it\\u2019s not their park and when you buy here you buy knowing there\\u2019s a park in front.\\u201D \\u201CThe trees that are already here are growing 10 to 20 meters the trees they\\u2019re cutting down are paperbarks and bottle brushes which at most grow to five meters,\\u201D he said Jacob said criticism connecting loss of ocean views to decreasing house values were invalid \\u2013 as leafy green spaces were known to increase suburb desirability and value He also said the city \\u201Cunashamedly\\u201D had the most aggressive tree canopy target in WA \\u201CWe are determined to plant [trees] .. the council is united on it,\\u201D he said \\u201CThe only way you end up with a leafy city is if a local government at a point in time says we\\u2019re going to aggressively plant trees and keep them here for the next generation.\\u201D \\u201CPeople who vandalise trees are causing a loss of amenity and extra costs for our community by destroying community assets The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day\\u2019s most important and interesting stories Metrics details Coral reef restoration can reduce the wave-driven flooding for coastal communities this protection has yet to be assessed in terms of the reduced risk of flood-driven environmental contamination Here we provide the first high-resolution valuation of the reduction of flood-related land-based environmental pollution provided by potential coral reef restoration Along Florida’s 460 km-long coral reef-fringed coastline coral reef restoration could reduce the risk of sewage and petrochemical contamination by preventing the flooding of petroleum storage tank systems (-9%) onsite sewage treatment and disposal systems (-4%) The present value of critical infrastructure protection and contamination prevention benefits provided by coral reef restoration is $3,413,503 10,404 GPD of wastewater treatment capacity demonstrating that coral reef restoration can provide environmental risk reduction and previously undocumented additional socioeconomic benefits coastal flood hazards are increasing and thus so is the potential for storm-driven contamination assessing the impact of flooding and the resulting environmental contamination on such communities is an environmental justice issue and WWTPs that could be damaged and potentially cause environmental contamination The CIE protection and contamination prevention (CPCP) benefits are defined as damages to CIEs and potential resulting environmental contamination that can be adverted with coral reef restoration compared to the current state of coral reefs we advance the precision of the computation of economic damages and economic benefits provided by coral reef restoration by presenting results as probability distributions to provide a holistic presentation of flood contamination risk The restoration of coral reefs can avert economic damages that otherwise can occur when CIEs are flooded and subsequently damaged during wave-driven flooding events Damages are defined as those to CIEs that limit their functionality and operability and cause related potential environmental contamination that require either repair or replacement of the element itself as well as potential environmental remediation and cleanup of the surrounding area Associated with these damages are the costs of repair and/or replacement of CIEs and environmental remediation measures and therefore do not include facilities with other industrial hazardous waste and thus are a conservative underestimation of the total possible contamination Coral reef restoration considered here consists of a solid structure with outplanted coral on top and total elevation increase of 1.25 m and width of 5 m in cross-shore direction (refer to Methods for details) is projected to reduce the number of pSTs, OSTDSs, and WWTPs (Fig. 1) at flood risk. with above ground in yellow and underground in red c Onsite sewage treatment and disposal systems The dark blue areas indicate the areas that are in a flood hazard zone for current coral reefs and the light blue areas indicate the reduced flood zones with coral reef restoration Orange areas represent the spatial extent of wastewater treatment plants and red areas indicate properties containing an onsite sewage treatment and disposal system Coral reef restoration is projected to reduce the size of coastal floodplains reducing the flooding of properties containing pSTs and WWTPs and the resulting environmental contamination e Expected annual damages with regards to the number of critical infrastructure elements (label on top of columns) and percentage averted (percentage in green columns) f Expected annual damages with regards to the economic damages (labels on top of the columns) and percentage adverted (percentage in green columns) The dark gray bars indicate the damages projected for current coral reefs and the green bars indicate damages for restored coral reefs Coral reef restoration can reduce the number of flooded pSTs and WWTPs and related economic damages per storm return interval and thus annual damages The critical infrastructure element (CIE) protection and contamination prevention (CPCP) benefits of coral reef restoration are dependent on the storm return interval and vary by type of critical infrastructure Because coral reef restoration is projected to reduce the number of flooded CIEs it will likely also reduce the number of newly contaminated sites By reducing the number of flooded CIEs, coral reef restoration is projected to decrease the volume of petroleum product and sewage capacity at risk for a given storm. For the 100-year floodplain, 59,300 U.S. gal of petrochemicals and a sewage capacity of 7500 U.S. gal per day (GPD) (Fig. 3) are projected to be protected from flooding with restored coral reefs in Florida. a Relation between the volume of petroleum product at flood risk and the flooded area for different storm return intervals The dashed circles indicate the values that correspond to a particular storm return interval (10-year b Relation between the capacity of sewage at flood risk and the flooded area for different storm return intervals c Expected annual damages (label to the right of bars) and percentage avoided (percentage in green bars) with regards to the volume of petroleum products stored and the capacity of sewage treated in zones with flood risk Dark gray bars indicate the volume of contaminants stored in floodplains based on current coral reefs and green bars represent those in floodplains with restored coral reefs Coral reef restoration is forecasted to reduce the volume of gasoline and the capacity of sewage at flood risk during wave-driven coastal flooding events and thus is projected to lessen the extent of environmental contamination by those pollutants gal (−3.0%) of petroleum products and a sewage capacity of 7,737 GPD (−0.5%) from WWTPs and 2,667 GPD (−3.8%) of sewage from OSTDSs are projected to be protected from flooding by restored coral reefs annually These disaggregate into projected annual flood protection of 9.7% (30,954 U.S gal) of other chemical substances (see Methods for details) Due to the location of pSTs containing aviation fuels (82,522 U.S annually none of these are forecasted to be protected with coral reef restoration With coral reef restoration projected to reduce the volume of petroleum-product and sewage capacity at flood risk it will reduce the overall environmental burden and necessity for cleanup measures for a given region Damages refer to physical damage to critical infrastructure elements and the resulting environmental contamination with petrochemicals and/or sewage Economic damages include costs for repair and/or replacement of those critical infrastructure elements as well as costs for environmental remediation and cleanup a Histogram of the present value of damages b Histogram of the present value of CPCP benefits c Distribution of the PV(D) per county for current coral reefs d Distribution of the PV(B) provided by restored coral reefs per county the blue horizontal lines indicate the 25 and 75% quantiles the red horizontal line represents the median and whiskers display the minimum and maximum values; extreme values are denoted by points a discount rate of 7% and 30-year lifetime were assumed Expected annual CPCP benefits for pSTs are US$110,000 (7%), for OSTDS US$11,000 (4%), and for WWTPs US$160,000 (14%). For areas in the 100-year floodplain of coral-fringed Florida, reef restoration can provide mean CPCP benefits to CIE of US$553,005 ± US$377,715 (7.2%) (Supplementary Fig. 2) Coral reef restoration is thus projected to reduce the financial burden for post-disaster measures for reconstruction of the functionality and operability of CIEs and environmental remediation for a given region Florida has 460 km of coral reef-fringed coastline of which 226 km (49.1%) are forecasted to experience CIE and potential flood contamination damages over the next 30 years due to wave-driven coastal flooding events if reefs remain unrestored (“current reefs”) Coral reef restoration is estimated to protect CIEs along 81 km and 35.8% of coastline for which damages are projected Depending on the section of coastline considered restored coral reefs are projected to offer mean present values of CPCP benefits ranging from US$0 to US$1,560,000/km with a mean ± standard deviation of US$7,421 ± US$83,286 coastal protection benefits can range from US$0/km to US$900,000/km with a mean ± standard deviation of US$4,620/km ± US$44,189/km (6.0%) Expected annual CPCP benefits are forecasted to range from US$0 to US$493,200/km with a mean ± standard deviation of US$2,254/km ± US$27,228/km with a mean ± standard deviation of 8.1 ± 22.5% are projected to be averted by restored coral reefs although coral reef restoration might not avert damages for some sections of Florida’s reef-fringed coastline it is projected to reduce the flood-related damages and contamination for some coastal segments almost entirely Coral reef restoration can protect critical infrastructure from damage and coastal communities from environmental contamination resulting from wave-driven coastal flooding events Our results demonstrate that coral reef restoration in Florida could protect pSTs OSTDSs and WWTPs from flood-related damages and spills that are equivalent to expected annual economic protection benefits of US$281,435 (2022 US$); as noted in the Methods as we did not consider smaller fixed or mobile sources and we used conservative radii of the polluted environment With regards to total flood-caused contamination in Florida such as facilities with industrial or hazardous waste a Expected annual economic damages per 1-km coastal segment forecasted for current coral reefs b Expected annual CPCP benefits restored coral reefs are projected to provide per 1-km coastal segment c Mean present value of damages to critical infrastructure elements for current coral reefs d Mean present value of CPCP benefits restored coral reefs could provide per 1-km coastal segment Coral reef restoration can substantially reduce the coastal hazard risk of flood damages to CIEs and subsequent contamination; however the damages and protection benefits are highly spatially variable due to the nature of the coral reefs and distribution of infrastructure potentially causing contamination if restored coral reefs can protect the flooding of CIEs and other contaminant sources it can reduce the chances that new sites of contamination develop coral reef restoration would also reduce the flood hazard for sites of known existing contamination for reef-fringed tropical coastlines it could reduce the economic and environmental burden for coastal communities associated with post-disaster recovery and environmental remediation Further studies on additional contaminant sources and related times of exposure to flooding are necessary to assess further flood contamination risks By averting flood damages to CIEs and avoiding flood-related environmental contamination for various areas and different functions within coastal communities coral reef restoration can reduce the short- and long-term human health hazard the CPCP benefits quantified in this study are but a small portion of the expected benefits from reef restoration This method of Monte Carlo simulations is applied here for the first time to assess CPCP benefits restored coral reefs can provide coral reef restoration could reduce the future financial and environmental burden arising from environmental cleanup Coral reef restoration therefore could contribute to the protection of common goods and peoples from flood-related environmental contamination and it could thus be a measure to improve environmental justice for underserved communities Our study area consists of the coastal areas of the counties Martin Middle and Lower Keys) in Monroe County in Florida and a second dataset with information on tank contents was provided directly by FDEP We chose to round down to 4 bedrooms to conduct a conservative estimate Our study represents a conservative approach by assessing the flood contamination risk for pSTs OSTDSs and WWTPs that are officially registered with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection We also assumed a conservative zone of impact of environmental contamination of CIE damage CPCP benefits provided by coral reef restoration for petrochemical exposure could even be higher if further contamination sources of anchored nature (i.e. storage tanks for emergency generators below the threshold) or mobile nature (i.e. and if the radius of the assumed polluted environment is assumed to be larger The restored coral reef scenario describes a restoration scenario that consists of a solid structure with outplanted live coral top with total vertical height increase of 1.25 m and a cross-shore width of 5.0 m that were situated in water depths between 2 and 7 m on continuous coral/hardbottom habitat and located at the closest point to shore There are two ways how this could be achieved: (a) either outplanting of tall (mature) live coral (b) a structural or “gray” restoration with a concrete or metal base structure and juvenile corals rescued from elsewhere or grown in nurseries outplanted on top Such a base structure in combination with the outplanting of live coral is often referred to as a “hybrid” restoration (2012b) modeled each of the reef scenarios (current reefs a theoretical reef restoration location was determined based on the bathymetry of the seafloor for depths between 2 and 7 m and WWTPs affected and protected from flooding with a quantitative geospatial analysis in ArcGIS Pro All locations of CIEs within a distance of 500 m of the largest floodplain (500-year storm return interval current reefs) were individually verified with Google Maps (satellite imagery) and ArcGIS Pro Imagery Hybrid map to account for spatial inaccuracies A detailed description of the procedure can be found in the following three subsections The location of each individual petroleum storage tank within a property corresponding to an address was verified with Google Maps permit documents and annual inspection reports found at respective links in the FDEP datasets pSTs located higher than the second story of a building were excluded since we assumed that flood waters will not reach these storage tank systems The point layer containing the location of pSTs was intersected with each of the eight floodplain layers the tool spatial join with a radius of 15 m was selected to account for the spatial extent of a storage tank and floodplain uncertainties The location of OSTDSs as provided in the datasets was at the street level we intersected the polygon layer containing polygons of properties with OSTDSs with each of the floodplains to determine the projected flooded area of the properties the areas of the flooded space of each property containing an OSTDS was measured for each of the flood scenarios the spatial ratio $\alpha$ of flooded property area to total property area was calculated and a spatial cut-off ratio of 20% was used it was defined that the OSTDS on that property was flooded If less than 20% of the property area was flooded it was defined that the OSTDS was not flooded We justify a spatial ratio $\alpha$ of 20% because on average only a limited area within a property is suitable for an OSTDS to be constructed as there are spatial requirements (open space free of trees no other built structures on top that could damage the absorption field) Since OSTDSs considered consist of the basic modules of septic tank by the physical principle of communicating vessels we assume that if one part of an OSTDS is flooded and flood water enters the system somewhere or even the entire system can become damaged and sewage spills can occur somewhere in the system we considered the use of a ratio $\alpha$ = 0.2 as the cut-off value which means one fifth of the property being flooded the state of a particular OSTDS (flooded/not flooded) was determined The number of OSTDSs flooded for a given scenario was determined by counting the number of properties containing an OSTDS with a spatial ratio $\alpha \ge$ 20% for a given flood scenario The addresses of WWTPs were provided as a point feature class We verified the location of the property corresponding to an address with Google Satellite Images We then further refined the WWTP’s spatial extent within a property with information found in official permits A respective link to a FDEP database to access these documents was found for every entry of the FDEP dataset The WWTP polygon layer was intersected with each of the floodplains and the area of the flooded area within the WWTP was computed the spatial ratio $\alpha$ of flooded area to total area of the WWTP was calculated a spatial cut-off ratio of 20% was used to determine the state (flooded/ not flooded) of a WWTP for a given flood scenario and WWTPs protected from coastal flooding with restored coral reefs was computed as the difference between the number of flooded pSTs for the scenario with current reefs for a given storm return interval and the number of pSTs with restored reefs for the same storm return interval: with N being the number of critical infrastructure elements and m being the type of critical infrastructure element (pST A SLOSH simulation is a computational model to simulate storm surges we identified related damage probabilities based on our results found in the literature search and then allocated the estimated damage probabilities to our different possible events in our decision trees Decision trees for pST and OSTDS damage can be found in Supplemental section are not described here in detail due to a lack of space to include in manuscript All found monetary values were converted to 2022 US$ For the estimation of economic flood damages and the projection of economic flood protection benefits restored coral reefs can provide, we used Monte Carlo simulations with 1000 iterations (Supplementary Fig. 11) We used two different types of Monte Carlo algorithms one for the estimation of the present values of damages and CPCP benefits at different scales (per kilometer of coastline total study area) and one other type for the assessment of damages and benefits projected per storm return interval (10-year The latter one becomes also relevant for the computation of expected annual damages and benefits (refer to paragraph “Expected annual damages and benefits“ below) The 460 km long coastline was divided into 1 km wide coastal segments The algorithm to determine the present values per county and study area is described here per year (ranging for year 0 to year T (maturity)) we randomly chose a storm of a given storm return interval (10-year 500-year; no storm) and corresponding probability of occurrence (1/10; 1/50; 1/100; 1/500; 0.868) every coastal segment of length 1 km along the coast can be affected For each pST and OSTDS within the flooded region we chose a random respective damage scenario based on previously determined damage probabilities and we randomly chose a value for occurring costs based on previously modeled PERT distributions For WWTPs we used previously determined economic losses based on damage degrees We then took the occurred damages for each individual CIE and summed up the economic damages per regional scale (per kilometer of coastline; per county; per study area) We repeated this procedure for each year from t = 0 to maturity t = T and discounted each year with a discount rate (see formula below) We then computed the present value of damages ${PV}{\left(D\right)}_{s,c,i}$ and the present value of CIE protection and contamination prevention (CPCP) benefits $PV{\left(B\right)}_{s,i}$ by summing up over the damages Hereby s is the regional scale (per coastal segment c is the coral reef restoration scenario (current reefs t is the time in years from year 0 to T (time of maturity) We used a maturity T of 30 years and a discount rate r of 7% as it is commonly used by FEMA and the U.S federal discount rate was reduced from 7 to 3.1% in 2024 thus our results can be considered conservative The mean present value of economic damages ${PV}{\left(D\right)}_{s,c}$ describes the flood damages to critical infrastructure that are estimated to occur over a specified period of time a particular state of coral reef and assumed discount rate The mean present value of economic CIE protection and contamination prevention (CPCP) benefits (${PV}{\left(B\right)}_{s}$) describes the amount of economic damages ${PV}{\left(D\right)}_{s,c}$ over a given time period for a specified region that can be prevented from occurring with a restored coral reef compared to the present-day state of a coral reef (“current reefs”) The ${PV}{\left(D\right)}_{s,c,i}$ and ${PV}{\left(B\right)}_{s,i}$ were computed for three different scales: per coastal segment of length 1 km We repeated this computation 1000 times (1000 iterations; for clarification: damage scenarios and storm return intervals were randomly chosen based on damage probabilities for each iteration) and then computed the mean and standard deviation over these 1000 iterations to determine the mean ${PV}{\left(D\right)}_{s,c}$ and corresponding standard deviations for different spatial ranges and coral reef restoration scenarios All mentioned monetary values were converted i representing the respective storm return interval (10-year 1/ Ti is the respective annual exceedance probability (1/10 Di represent projected mean damages per respective storm return interval For expected annual CPCP benefits coral reef restoration can provide we computed the difference in predicted mean flood losses between a state with present-day coral reefs and a state with restored coral reefs: Both expected annual damages and expected annual CPCP benefits were further computed for four additional types of parameters: (1.1) the number of CIE projected to be flooded; (1.2) the number of CIE projected to be protected from flooding; (2.1) the estimated volumes of petroleum products and the capacity of wastewater treatment at flood risk; (2.2) the estimated volumes of petroleum products and the capacity of wastewater treatment projected to be protected from flooding In our model we assumed that floodplains remain constant over a lifetime T = 30 years This means we assumed the state of current and restored coral reefs also remains constant and thus there is no degradation of coral reefs over time future continuous coral reef degradation can occur if coral reefs are not restored and if the threats that killed the reefs in the first place are not mitigated and this would change the floodplain corresponding to the state of current reefs for a given year climate change impacts the severity of storm events and a storm event of certain magnitude and annual exceedance probability can be classified as an event with lower annual exceedance probability (10-year storm can become 5-year storm in the future) There are 6 CIE factors that affect the CPCP benefits per length of coastline: (1) the number of CIEs per coastal segment which is related to the population density and type of CIE technology of a municipality (i.e. OSTDS); (2) location of a CIE relative to the wave-driven floodplains; (3) number of storm return intervals for which a CIE is protected as this affects the present value of CPCP benefits and expected CPCP benefits; (4) type of CIE protected as there are different repair and/or replacement costs for different types of CIEs; (5) size of CIE affected as the costs for reparation/replacement of pSTs and WWTPs depend on size; and (6) damage probabilities for a flooded CIE the higher the number of CIEs protected from flooding by reef restoration the higher the number of storm-return intervals for which a CIE is protected the larger the volume of pSTs or capacity of WWTPs and the higher the damage probability for a CIE the higher the CPCP benefits per coastal segment on the benefits side of the benefit-cost-analysis We further assumed for our Monte Carlo simulation that either no storm or one storm of a random storm return interval can occur per year there have been years with 2 storm events per year in same location This would imply that annual damages could be higher because the sum of storm damages of two events per year are likely to be higher than only for one Since our intention was to conduct a conservative approach we are aware that the extent of storms can cause storm surges of different spatial extent We have experimented with different spatial extents of storms but instead of presenting the results from multiple models with different assumptions we focus on the results from the most transparent assumption Our results of the present value of damages and the present value of CPCP benefits show a high standard deviation because the storm of certain storm return intervals are randomly selected based on given probabilities If one compares one run of a Monte Carlo simulation in which one 500-year and one 100-year storm occurs and another run in which only two 10-year storms occur it can be seen that the sum of damages differs Also relevant is the year the storm of a given storm return interval occurs this result visualizes very well the reality: if no storm event occurs the coastal protection function of a coral reef is not required if a storm event with coastal flooding occurs damages occur within the short time frame of a couple hours to days and economic damages can be several million to tens of millions of dollars the coastal protection function of a coral reef is strongly beneficial Further information on research design is available in the Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary linked to this article The developed Matlab code for the Monte Carlo simulation will be provided upon request In Coastal Storms: Processes and Impacts (eds Ciavola Operational forecasts of wave-driven water levels and coastal hazards for US Gulf and Atlantic coasts Performance of storage tanks in oil facilities damaged by hurricanes katrina and Rita Damage models for storage and process equipment involved in flooding events Release of hazardous substances in flood events: Damage model for horizontal cylindrical vessels Probabilistic assessment of storage tanks subjected to waterborne 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Historical SLOSH Simulations. https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/surge/HistoricalRuns/?large&parm=2005_katrina (2022) Valuing the Coastal Hazard Risk Reduction by Coral Reef Restoration with regards to Avoided Destruction of Critical Infrastructure and Related Contamination Caused by Coastal Flooding during Storm Events in Florida [Master’s Thesis Comprehensive flood risk assessment for wastewater treatment plants under extreme storm events: a case study for New York City FEMA. Hazus 5.1 Flood Model Technical Manual. https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/documents/fema_hazus-flood-model-technical-manual-5-1.pdf (2022) FEMA. Hazus 6.0 Inventory Technical Manual. https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/documents/fema_hazus-6-inventory-technical-manual.pdf (2022) Biological Nutrient Removal Processes and Costs Evoqua. Marathon Wastewater Treatment Plant Meets Effluent Standards. https://www.evoqua.com/en/case-studies/marathon-municipal-sbr/ Comparing Methods of Calculating Expected Annual Damage in Urban Pluvial Flood Risk Assessments Download references Geological Survey (USGS) Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program’s Coral Reef Project as part of an effort in the United States and its trust territories to better understand the effect of geologic and oceanographic processes on coral reef systems through the Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program funding from the 2017 Hurricanes and Wildfire Supplemental We want to thank Christopher Williams (Florida Department of Environmental Protection) and Kristen Alkins (USGS) for the provision of geospatial data Patrick Barnard (USGS) contributed numerous excellent suggestions and a timely review of our work There are no sampling permissions required as all datasets are open to the public or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL Chair of Agricultural Production and Resource Economics The authors declare no competing interests Communications Earth & Environment thanks Rachel R reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02019-4 Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: a shareable link is not currently available for this article Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Anthropocene newsletter — what matters in anthropocene research A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States A small lock or https:// means you’ve safely connected to a .gov website Share sensitive information only on official All corals require very salty water to survive—from 32 to 42 parts per thousand—restricting them to coastal and open ocean areas different types of coral communities are typically located in parts of the ocean based on their light requirements The red dots on the map represent the locations of reef building stony corals around the world. The majority of reef-building stony corals are found in shallow tropical and subtropical waters ranging from 35N to 35S latitude. View a large map of where reef building corals are found. Shallow water stony corals are typically found in areas that receive a lot of light and warm water Many grow the best in water temperatures between 23° and 29° C (73.4° and 84.2° F) but some can tolerate temperatures as high as 40° C (104° F) for short periods These corals’ requirement for high light also explains why most reef-building species are restricted to the region in the ocean where light penetrates to a depth of approximately 30 meters (98.4 feet) but its intensity dwindles as it passes through the depths of the sea Yet even the ocean’s dim middle reaches—the mesophotic zone (and its deepest or deep benthic zone)—host an abundance of life Mesophotic corals (meso meaning middle and photic meaning light) are so named because they have lower light requirements than shallow corals enough sunlight still reaches the mesophotic zone to support light-dependent coral species Sometimes healthy deep sea corals take on a stark white appearance. Learn more and view a larger image. Mesophotic coral reefs are usually understudied because they are too deep to reach with regular scuba gear and often too shallow for submarine expeditions with the increasing safety and accessibility of technical diving and remotely operated vehicle technologies larger areas of mesophotic coral communities are being explored scientists have discovered there are reefs in parts of the deep sea they grow much slower than their shallow water counterparts How to cite this article David Shiffman has consulted for many environmental non-profit groups including the Ocean Conservancy as well as fishing industry groups and fisheries managment agencies Arizona State University provides funding as a member of The Conversation US View all partners The single greatest threat to the diversity of life in our oceans over the past 50 years, more than climate change or plastic pollution In much of the ocean, there is little to no regulation or oversight of commercial fishing or other human activities. That’s part of the reason about a tenth of marine plant and animal species are considered threatened or at risk It’s also why countries around the world have been creating marine protected areas These protected areas, covering over 11.6 million square miles (30 million square kilometers) in 16,000 locations, offer refuge away from human activities for a wide variety of living creatures, from corals to sea turtles and whales. They give fish stocks a place to thrive, and those fish spread out into the surrounding waters which helps fishing industries and local economies In the U.S., however, marine protection is being dismantled by President Donald Trump I’m a marine biologist and scuba diver, and it’s no accident that all my favorite dive sites are within marine protected areas. I’ve found what scientific studies from across the world show: Protected areas have much healthier marine life populations and healthier ecosystems The Pacific Island Heritage National Marine Monument marine mammals and birds rarely found anywhere else It is home to protected and endangered species, including turtles, whales and Hawaiian monk seals. Palmyra Atoll and Kingman Reef, both within the area, are considered among the most pristine coral reefs in the world each providing habitats for a wide range of fish and other species These marine species are able to thrive there and spread out into the surrounding waters because their habitats have been protected is now reopening much of the marine protected area to industrial-scale fishing When too many fish are killed and too few young fish are left to replace them and this has become a growing problem around the world In 1974, about 10% of the world’s fish stocks were overfished. By 2021, that number had risen to 37.7%, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s annual State of Fisheries and Aquaculture Report Modern industrial-scale fishing practices can also harm other species Without regulations or protected areas, fishing can turn into a competitive free-for-all that can deplete fish stocks Marine protected areas are designed to safeguard parts of the ocean from human impacts including offshore oil and gas extraction and industrial fishing practices Studies have found that these areas can produce many benefits for both marine life and fishermen by allowing overfished species to recover and ensuring their health for the future A decade after Mexico established the Cabo Pulmo protected area, for example, fish biomass increased by nearly 500% Successful marine protected areas tend to have healthier habitats, more fish, more species of fish, and bigger fish than otherwise-similar unprotected areas. Studies have found the average size of organisms to be 28% bigger in these areas than in fished areas with no protections How many babies a fish has is directly related to the size of the mother All of this helps create jobs through ecotourism and support local fishing communities outside the marine protected area Marine protected areas also have a “spillover effect” – the offspring of healthy fish populations that spawn inside these areas often spread beyond them helping fish populations outside the boundaries thrive as well the fishing industry benefits from a continuing supply Claims by the Trump administration that marine protected areas are a heavy-handed restriction on the U.S these refuges for sea life can instead help local economies and the industry by allowing fish populations to thrive coral reefs and the health of fishing itself scientists like me recommend creating more marine protected areas to help species thrive Driving Global Action to Protect Coral Reef with Innovative Financing 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Saudi Arabia has officially assumed the Secretariat of the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) for its 14th term marking a significant milestone in global coral reef conservation ICRI represents 102 members including 45 countries that are custodians of 75% of the world's coral reefs The Kingdom's leadership for this three-year term was confirmed by ICRI members during the 38th General Meeting in September 2024 Saudi Arabia will lead this historic role through the General Organization for the Conservation of Coral Reefs and Turtles in the Red Sea (SHAMS) The virtual handover ceremony featured distinguished attendees the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Ocean Department of State and other distinguished entities which sustain 25% of the world's marine biodiversity contribute an estimated US$9.9 trillion annually in goods and services highlighting their immense ecological and economic value ICRI members are working under Saudi Arabia's leadership to develop the 2025–2027 Action Plan The plan aims to expand membership to include 90% of the world's coral reefs integrating resilient reef management into global policies and enhancing national biodiversity strategies Key priorities include boosting the blue economy advancing reef monitoring with innovative technologies and utilizing insights from the upcoming "Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2025" report Other notable initiatives include the launch of ICRI's Youth Strategy strengthening collaboration in the Red Sea and raising global awareness through major events such as the UN Ocean Conference This milestone underscores Saudi Arabia's commitment to environmental stewardship aligning with Vision 2030's ambitious sustainability goals and economic diversification strategy It also complements the recently launched National Strategy for Red Sea Sustainability which reinforces the Kingdom's dedication to conserving the Red Sea's unique marine ecosystems and creating a sustainable blue economy emphasized the significance of this role: "Saudi Arabia's role as ICRI Secretariat underscores our unwavering commitment to a sustainable future for coral reefs worldwide We are deeply grateful to ICRI members for their trust and recognition in selecting Saudi Arabia to lead this critical global initiative we aim to set new benchmarks in coral reef conservation and collaboration to drive both national and international initiatives Our goal is to protect these vital ecosystems ensuring their resilience for future generations while maintaining their invaluable contributions to the global economy." The General Organization for the Conservation of Coral Reefs and Turtles in the Red Sea (SHAMS) is the governmental body mandated to regulate and ensure the sustainable management of Saudi Arabia's exceptional and one of the world's most resilient coral reefs and sea turtle ecosystems in the Red Sea implements large-scale restoration projects and develops sustainable management frameworks to safeguard these critical ecosystems For more visit: http://shams.gov.sa The International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) is a global partnership between Nations and organisations that strives to preserve coral reefs and related ecosystems around the world The Initiative was founded in 1994 and has since grown to a network of 102 members including 45 countries who represent over 75% of the world's coral reefs For more visit: www.icriforum.org SOURCE General Organization for the Conservation of Coral Reefs and Turtles in the Red Sea (SHAMS) AAPR aggregates press releases and media statements from around the world to assist our news partners with identifying and creating timely and relevant news. All of the press releases published on this website are third-party content and AAP was not involved in the creation of it. Read the full terms. CNN and the BBC World Service which is copyright and cannot be reproduced AEST = Australian Eastern Standard Time which is 10 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) The coral reefs that dot Colombia's sprawling Sea Flower Biosphere Reserve are among the most vibrant in the Caribbean invasive species and climate change are decimating these undersea cities threatening marine life and the livelihoods of thousands of people a novel funding mechanism is helping relieve some of those stressors. The Global Fund for Coral Reefs a multi-partner trust fund supported by the United Nations is providing grants and soft loans to small businesses that operate within the reserve The funding is backing several reef-friendly ventures The financing is part of a growing effort by governments and philanthropies to use seed money to jumpstart private investments in conservation with the support of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the World Bank the Republic of Seychelles launched the world’s first sovereign blue bond in 2018 to support sustainable marine and fisheries projects demonstrating the potential for countries to harness capital markets for financing the conservation restoration and sustainable use of marine resources. “If we’re to achieve the targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework nations need to massively scale up the amount of resources they are dedicating to nature,” said Sinikinesh Beyene Jimma interim Head of Marine and Freshwater Branch from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) hold the key to generating that capital.” The protection of marine spaces is traditionally funded by governments often because businesses view investments in sustainability as risky Blended finance uses a combination of guarantees concessional loans and impact bonds to reduce private investors’ exposure “It gives businesses the confidence they need to invest in sustainability most businesses will find these investments make financial sense even without government and philanthropic support,” Jimma said. This week, representatives from 196 nations are in Cali, Colombia for the UN Biodiversity Conference where negotiators are focusing on how to round up more financing for biodiversity Some are looking at the Global Fund for Coral Reefs as a model. Launched in 2020, the GFCR has raised more than US$90 million in grant funds and close to US$150 million in private investments for what it calls “coral-reef-positive” businesses around the world. This money has helped to support everything from ecotourism to sustainable aquaculture to seaweed farming The GFCR aims to support over 400 reef-positive businesses and directly create more than 30,000 reef-positive jobs by 2030 In the UNESCO-designated Seaflower Biosphere Reserve home to 77 per cent of Colombia’s coral reefs the fund is projected to raise more than US$16 million in private investment and support more than 65,000 community members with increased resilience across Colombia by 2030 the programme in Colombia aims to increase live coral cover by 4 per cent and protect 825 square kilometers of reefs It is also hoping to rein in the spread of algae Experts expect this work to lead to an increase in fish which will improve food security for local communities and raise income from fishing and tourism by about 40 per cent. The fund’s efforts come on the heels of 18 months of unprecedented ocean heat that is spelling disaster for the world’s coral reefs. The United States of America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says more than 70 per cent of corals around the world have experienced heat stress that can trigger bleaching many of whom live in the world’s least-developed countries Yet these vital ecosystems continue to be degraded the Global Fund for Coral Reefs launched a US$3 million seven-year project focusing on the Bird’s Head Seascape and Pulau Sumba — an epicentre of marine biodiversity. allowing Indonesia to redirect debt payments towards coral reef conservation and showcasing the potential of innovative financial approaches. Projects like these cannot stop ocean warming and coral bleaching being wrought by climate change But they can reduce local stressors on coral reefs and give them a better chance of recovery and survival. “What we’re doing is giving corals a fighting chance,” said Sinikinesh Beyene Jimma from UNEP “That’s vital for protecting the stunning diversity of life in the ocean it’s pivotal for the futures of millions of people who rely on marine ecosystems for their livelihoods.” The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework   The planet is experiencing a dangerous decline in nature. One million species are threatened with extinction, soil health is declining, and water sources are less predictable. The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework sets out global targets to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030 and close the financial gap for nature. The Global Fund for Coral Reefs (GFCR) was established to accelerate urgent investment and action to enhance the resilience of coastal reef ecosystems The GFCR comprises two major financial vehicles: a UN-led Grant Fund and a private-sector-led large-scale private equity impact Investment Fund and enable technologies for a sustainable future ABC News News Home Science Coral is bleaching across the top half of the Western Australian coastline including the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Reef Deep corals at the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Reef complex are bleaching for the first time on record The heat stress is because of a marine heatwave along half the WA coastline that has bleached corals from Ningaloo up to Ashmore Reef at the same time — in another record first Scientists will gather at the end of March to come up with a climate vulnerability assessment for the Ningaloo region Post-mortality surveys will be conducted throughout WA in the coming months Link copiedShareShare articleA major bleaching event at the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Reef could eclipse the previous worst case of bleaching 14 years ago All because of a record marine heatwave that has persisted since last winter The seriousness of the heatwave's impact is beginning to sink in as parts of Australia's biggest fringing reef a 260-kilometre long system between Exmouth and Carnarvon in Western Australia started to turn fluorescent colours or white with heat stress in the past two weeks And it's not just Ningaloo that's bleaching — reefs along the top half of the WA coastline have already been hit by bleaching events this summer Ningaloo — synonymous with whale sharks — has largely escaped the impact of global marine heatwaves in the past two decades While the Great Barrier Reef has suffered five mass bleachings since 2016 Ningaloo's last big bleach was its largest known event in 2011 Ningaloo Glass Bottom Boat owner and skipper Craig Kitson has lived in Exmouth for 25 years he said this was the biggest bleaching event he has ever seen "It's [bleaching] just everywhere," Mr Kitson said "We won't know the full extent until May we're still going to have another couple of months of hot weather." Authorities that monitor the reef — the Australian Institute Of Marine Science (AIMS) and WA's Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) — are getting reports of bleaching along the entire system from the north to as far as Gnaraloo Bay in the south There's no estimate yet on what percentage of coral coverage is impacted by the bleaching And it's too early to know how many corals could die; post-impact surveys will be undertaken in the months to come A DBCA spokesperson stressed that coral bleaching was an indicator of stress but did not always result in mortality it can often extend for months before the full extent and severity of the event can be determined," they said A late start to the monsoon and higher than average ocean temperatures led to bleaching that caught scientists by surprise Usually the highest danger period for bleaching in WA is March and April Corals from the Exmouth Gulf in full colour in 2022 before the bleaching CSIRO coral reef ecologist Damian Thomson said the bleaching at Ningaloo was anecdotally more extensive than the last mass event He said it had even gotten into the deeper outer reef areas "And that's a first for Ningaloo," he said "Even the previous worst event in 2011 we didn't see extensive bleaching on that reef slope area "It does sounds like this event has been more extreme and having a greater impact on the reef communities there." A pre-bleaching shot of Ningaloo Reef showcasing its lagoons close to shore and the drop-off to the outer reef as the water gets deeper Ningaloo can be thought of as a reef in two parts A shallow lagoon you walk into off the beach and a big drop off to the outer reef that gets 30 metres deep and up to 6 kilometres wide containing diverse coral communities Blue Media Exmouth photographer and videographer Violeta Brosig was diving on a section of the northern outer reef on Wednesday "Fish life at our deep dive was pretty normal "[But] inside the lagoon I didn't see much usually there's turtles and reef sharks there was some fish there but it was quiet." As people try to monitor and come to terms with what's happening at Ningaloo it's easy to forget a lot of the state's lesser known reefs are going through a similar fight there are corals withstanding the heat in places like Tantabiddi Sanctuary there have been higher than average sea temperatures in WA Those absolute temperatures didn't result in bleaching or coral mortality in the months leading into December is one of the main scientists monitoring coral bleaching in WA He said temperatures in December and January were one to more than three degrees Celsius higher in the north than its usual average "Temperatures were well above those expected to cause coral bleaching across much of the far north," Dr Gilmour said Reports of bleaching came in from ranger groups in the inshore southern Kimberley Come January and February there were more reports of extensive bleaching in the Dampier Archipelago near Karratha Bleaching reports in the Ningaloo and Exmouth Gulf then started popping up in early February Under the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's coral alert system Ningaloo reached the second highest alert level in recent days The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration introduced a new five-alert level coral bleaching heat stress system in 2023 The risk has now lowered after Tropical Cyclone Zelia hit the coast last week southerly winds and shift in climate have cooled temperatures and caused cool water upwelling at Ningaloo and other reefs," Dr Gilmour said freshwater runoff and damaging waves that could harm reefs already affected by bleaching temperatures across reefs will increase again in March and peak in April Dr Gilmour said this would increase the risk of a second bleaching event for many WA reefs all within a few months said this could result in even more widescale bleaching and die-offs "This current heatwave may mean some reproductively ready corals die before they reproduce or maybe are too stressed to spawn "Studies also show that heat stress can impact spawning and the quality of the spawn for years after." Molecular ecologist Kate Quigley studies and breeds corals for genetic resistance to warming oceans With the main heatwave danger period still to come there are also concerns for another World Heritage area down the road from Ningaloo and the potential fallout for commercial fishers The World Heritage-listed Shark Bay was badly impacted by the 2011 marine heatwave The shallow double-bay system is home to a scallop industry as well as tourism attracting species like dugongs and dolphins They all took a hit when 1,300 square kilometres of seagrass underpinning the whole ecosystem was lost UWA Ocean Institute evolutionary biologist Elizabeth Sinclair said Shark Bay is unique as the collision of cool and tropical waters within the Bay has resulted in a large variety of species "So when it gets really hot for a long period of time they suffer," Dr Sinclair said "We lost a third of them last heatwave that has a massive knock on impact over time to the ecosystem." Shark Bay is a shallow system full of seagrass munched on by dugongs said the Shark Bay scallop fishery was closed for about four years after the 2011 heatwave He and other scallop fishermen are waiting on a February stock assessment to get the final go ahead to harvest in the coming months "What I'd like to see is the result of the [scallop] survey and the numbers still there," he said "Otherwise it could be a bit of a drought Dugongs are a cryptic creature but their largest population in WA reside in Shark Bay There aren't any reports of stress from Shark Bay or the Abrolhos Islands but fisheries authorities are keeping an eye on the situation Dr Sinclair said at the moment all scientists could do was watch and document what happened "We learnt something from the last heatwave .. but conditions aren't always uniform so it's hard to know really what's going to happen," she said "But prolonged warming is not good for anything in that environment other than really changing the way our governments are managing our energy sources." Australian Institute of Marine Science coral reef ecologist James Gilmour (Supplied: Anna Cresswell/Australian Institute of Marine Science) Dr Gilmour said until climate change was addressed the degradation of reefs would also continue "What I fear is the conditions in 50 years time more than the loss of corals at one spot capitulary now," he said "That's what a lot of us [scientists] really grapple with." Current predictions are Ningaloo will start bleaching twice a decade by 2041 and then once a year by 2046 Dr Gilmour would like to see more resources go into monitoring the WA reefs which is much less monitored than the Great Barrier Reef The reporting on bleaching that feeds into organisations like AIMS comes a lot of the time from populated areas but with such a big coastline there are monitoring gaps Ningaloo is famous for its whale sharks which are found in large numbers in the middle of the year but were also seen in the region last month is in the remote northern Kimberley region Partnerships are being developed with ranger groups but Dr Gilmour said the time was well overdue for a coordinated long term monitoring program in WA "Not one group needs to wear the full burden of that it could be among a few groups if we need additional support," he said Marine scientists also plan to get together at the end of the month in Exmouth to do a climate vulnerability assessment for the region There are also calls within the scientific and conservation communities for governments to be providing more updates on how WA's reefs are faring in the heatwave The WA environment minister, Reece Whitby, has called for an urgent briefing on the state of Ningaloo. Scientists like Dr Quigley would like to see him and other government officials communicating more with the public on the scope of what's happening in WA. "We want to see this communicated to the public," she said. "People have a right to know what's happening in their marine protected areas, in their World Heritage sites." Paul Gamblin, the director of the conservation group Protect Ningaloo, said there should have been more communication during the build-up of the heatwave weeks ago. "The government should explain to the community why these marine heatwaves are occurring now since they are very much a recent phenomenon," he said Back in Exmouth, boat skipper Mr Kitson says it could be confronting to see all the impacts happening to the Ningaloo Reef, but the most important thing is that people still come and connect with the place for themselves. "I did a tour this week and had snorkellers in the water and it was the most fantastic thing they've ever done," he said. "Compared to most reefs in the world it's still among the best. It's important people come and learn and see the changes and connect with the place. The Anohni and the Johnsons singer is collaborating with marine scientists for two special shows at Sydney’s Vivid festival that will show the reef’s plight “I feel like I’m going to Auschwitz,” she says nervously I’m so excited to go because the landscape is so beautiful and I know there’s going to be so much that’s gorgeous In a week, the British-born, New York-based avant garde singer of Anohni and the Johnsons is flying to Lizard Island Its luxury villas and bluest of blue waters are a stark contrast to the grim nature of Anohni’s assignment: documenting the current state of the world’s biggest coral reef “Where are the ceremonies fit for the purpose of naming and commemorating the times that we’re living through?” she asks. “To see the Great Barrier Reef fall, that’s 10,000 9/11s.” “People can’t really imagine something on that scale dying,” she says. a production company that specialises in underwater and conservation films Anohni will be directing the scuba team from the surface in her snorkel “I can’t believe I’m doing it,” she laughs Just as a dying star glows more brightly before it goes dark coral look even more beautiful in distress Fluorescing – a phenomenon when corals release a garish pigment into their flesh as a sign of heat stress – is deceptively spectacular; and bleaching – when corals expel the photosynthetic algae that give them colour in response to warmer ocean temperatures – turns them a dazzling white Bleached and dead coral around Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef in April last year Photograph: David Gray/AFP/Getty Images“It is like when someone’s dying sometimes they show the gold of the soul,” Anohni says “They throw their life force into a final expression That’s what coral bleaching is … she’s saying goodbye.” She describes a conversation she had with a scientist who went out to visit a dead reef with a group of Danish students “and they were all saying it was the most beautiful thing in the world because they didn’t even know what they were looking at was a bunch of skeletons” Anohni has long been singing about the climate crisis, sneaking this bitter pill into her beautiful, otherworldly songs. “I need another world,” she sang sorrowfully on 2009’s Another World. “This one’s nearly gone.” On 4 Degrees released as world leaders met for the 2015 Paris climate conference she sang her grim vision of the future: “I wanna hear the dogs crying for water / I wanna see the fish go belly-up in the sea / And all those lemurs and all those tiny creatures / I wanna see them burn She has grown used to being seen “as a kind of a Cassandra on the sidelines”; the prophet doomed to be ignored she is “so grateful” for being alienated in a way – as a trans artist as a climate activist – “because when you have an outsider status you have an opportunity to see the forest for the trees” It Must Change by Anohni and the JohnsonsAnohni has a special connection to Australia: in 2013 she was invited to visit the Martu people of Parnngurr When she asked one Martu woman where they believed people went after death: “She just looked at me like I was an idiot and said from a British and Irish Catholic background peaceful acceptance of this animist reality,” she says “I was raised in a society where they believed that only humans had souls and that this place was basically just a suffering ground where we had to mind our Ps and Qs “I screamed at those fucking wankers, and made a fucking fool of myself,” she says, smiling, “and I was torn a new arsehole in the Murdoch press.” But at the same time, she was inundated with messages of support from all over the country. “I was proud of the chance to be of service to Australians,” she says. There is no hope of reefs surviving to even mid-century in any form that we now recognise.” “Australia is pioneering in this oeuvre of environmental feeling,” Anohni says “It’s could be something to do with the Australian temperament very cruel in that regard – any expression of emotion is grounds for exclusion from any conversation of reason.” It is her hope that her Vivid shows will be fit for purpose – to show people the reality of the reef and give them a space to both marvel and grieve “But to grieve doesn’t mean that a thing is done – to grieve just means that you’re recognising where we are,” she says “For an hour and a half you can come to the Great Barrier Reef with me Without understanding what we’re looking at there’s no hope of finding a direction forward It’s actually a profound gesture of hope.” Anohni and the Johnsons will perform Mourning the Great Barrier Reef at Sydney Opera House on 26 and 27 May as part of Vivid festival The next phase of the transformative Ocean Reef Marina development is about to commence with construction starting on the new headquarters for Marine Rescue Whitfords and facilities for the Ocean Reef Sea Sports Club and Joondalup City RSL Western Australian developer Byte Construct has today been named as the preferred contractor for the works which are set to get underway in the coming weeks Marine Rescue Whitfords will be housed in a new two-storey building with space for training The new facility will feature state-of-the-art amenities to support the crucial operations of Western Australia’s dedicated volunteer rescue service representing a significant step forward in the Cook Government’s commitment to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of all who enjoy our coastal waters three marine rescue vessels will be permanently moored at the marina on ready-access jetties for fast deployment significantly improving safety for recreational boaters fishers and other water users in Perth’s north phone and online applications will allow every vessel to log trips from the coast to all local locations improving safety and communications for all The $6.48 million building has been specifically designed to accommodate Marine Rescue Whitfords along with the Department of Transport’s Marine Manager’s Office and services for future marina pen holders It is an excellent example of cross-collaboration with the Department of Transport and Marine Rescue Whitfords to work closely together to ensure the safety of the local recreational boating community The neighbouring Ocean Reef Sea Sports Club and Joondalup City RSL will include upgraded angling dive and sailing facilities as well as dining and bar options that will benefit current and future members It will also offer improved meeting rooms for community groups and other local clubs to use The City of Joondalup has put $3 million towards construction of the Ocean Reef Sea Sports Club and the club itself has contributed $1.75 million the redeveloped Ocean Reef Marina will be a premier waterfront precinct for Perth’s northern suburbs and a key tourism destination for WA Premier Roger Cook said “The redeveloped Ocean Reef Marina will boast Perth’s first coastal pool a family beach within the protection of the marina upgraded facilities for local clubs and services “Commencement of works on the new headquarters for Marine Rescue Whitfords and new Ocean Reef Sea Sports Club and Joondalup City RSL is a major milestone for the Ocean Reef Marina project which has been made possible by my Government’s substantial $272.3 million investment “We are investing in this generational development to provide another landmark tourism destination for WA as we work to further diversify the State’s economy “It will also deliver more housing options improved services and unparalleled public amenities for the local community.” Lands Minister John Carey said “The Marine Rescue Whitfords facility will feature state-of-the-art amenities meticulously designed to support the crucial operations of our dedicated volunteer rescue service “With dedicated pens ensuring a permanent rescue fleet we are bolstering our ability to respond swiftly and effectively to emergencies along our coastline “The new state-of-the-art clubhouse for the Ocean Reef Sea Sports Club and Joondalup City RSL will become an environmentally sustainable landmark within the newly developed Ocean Reef Marina “It will offer upgraded dining and bar options and sailing facilities and facilities for community groups.” Emergency Services Minister Stephen Dawson said “Ensuring our emergency services volunteers have modern facilities and equipment to perform their life saving role is a priority for the Cook Government three marine rescue vessels will be permanently located at the marina ensuring faster deployment and enhanced safety outcomes for recreational boaters “This is one of the biggest and busiest volunteer marine rescue groups in the State with around 250 call outs “This new Marine Rescue Whitfords facility is a win-win for all concerned with the delivery of state-of-the-art amenities to support our volunteers and the local community.” Joondalup MLA Emily Hamilton said “Our Joondalup community is excited to see the land-based works taking place and are looking forward to the new facilities that will provide a new home for Marine Rescue Whitfords the Ocean Reef Sea Sport Club and the Joondalup City RSL Joondalup is the city centre servicing our northern corridor and our new landmark Ocean Reef Marina will be a world-class tourism and hospitality destination that will boost our local economy.” Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value" ANU is a world-leading university in Australia’s capital Excellence is embedded in our approach to research and education Your donation will make a real difference to our community of researchers and students ANU graduates become lifelong members of our community ANU has a huge variety of support services programs and activities to enhance your student experience led by The Australian National University (ANU). Land and ocean temperatures reached new extremes in 2024 The annual average temperature across Australia in 2024 was the second highest on record after 2019 while the mean sea surface temperature around Australia was the highest on record. This led to the fifth coral bleaching event in less than ten years in the Great Barrier Reef as well as a severe bleaching event in Western Australia’s Ningaloo Reef. invasive species and ongoing climate change continue to threaten our native ecosystems 41 species were added to Australia’s threatened species list in 2024 While a significant drop from the record 130 additions in 2023 it remains well above the long-term average of 25 species per year. Australia’s environment scored a 7.7 out of 10 at the national scale The three years prior saw the country score between 6.5 and 8.5 out of 10 after extremely low scores between 0.4 and 2.0 out of 10 in the disaster years of 2019 and 2020. ANU Professor Albert Van Dijk warns the favourable environmental improvements of the last four years do not negate long-term concerns. “Environmental conditions improved from 2023 to 2024 for most states and territories Parts of South Australia experienced their driest year since at least 2000 leading to a state-wide score of 3.8 out of 10 in 2024 – the lowest in the country,” Professor Van Dijk said. parts of inland Northern Territory experienced their wettest year in more than two decades The territory recorded the best score in the country with 8.6 out of 10. “New South Wales saw the biggest improvement from 2023 rainfall was well above average in January and March and again in November and December. “Temperatures over Australia were the second highest on record with increased hot days while snow cover fell to its lowest level since 2018 National rainfall was 18 per cent above the average fire activity remained below average for the sixth consecutive year. “Although environmental conditions were encouraging this is largely the result of favourable short-term climate conditions rather than sustained long-term gains the past year saw relatively good rainfall that allowed vegetation to thrive and soil health to improve the global climate emergency continues to escalate and Australia remains highly vulnerable.” the report’s authors examine the Threatened Species Index which looks at the trajectory of Australia’s threatened wildlife. plants and frogs has declined by an average of 58 per cent,” report co-author Tayla Lawrie from the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN) Lawrie said the latest update offers a glimmer of hope A slight two per cent increase for the most recent year of the Index (2021) suggests that declines may be stabilising for some groups ongoing long-term monitoring is essential to confirm which species are improving and which continue to suffer. Report co-author Shoshana Rapley from ANU points out that the devastating and long-lasting effects of the 2019/20 Black Summer bushfires on our nation’s biodiversity continues to reverberate. the legacy of the Black Summer bushfires is still evident with more than 50 per cent of species newly listed or uplisted on the threatened species list directly affected by the fires,” Rapley said. 14 species were uplisted to a higher category of extinction risk Only one species was removed from the list – the southern bluefin tuna It joins the short list of only 11 species that have successfully made it off the threatened species list due to population recovery." 2024 was Earth’s hottest year on record globally while Australia’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions remain among the highest in the world Professor Van Dijk said now is not the time for complacency. businesses and individuals should act decisively to secure the future of Australia’s environment Strategies such as investment in renewable energy and increased biodiversity conservation efforts are essential to stop the underlying degrading trend,” he said. 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Please click here to see any active alerts EPA is actively engaged in the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force (USCRTF) The USCRTF was established by Executive Order 13089 to lead U.S efforts to preserve and protect coral reef ecosystems It is instrumental in building partnerships and strategies for on-the-ground action to conserve coral reefs The USCRTF is co-chaired by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of the Interior with regular participation from 14 federal agencies and commonwealths and three freely associated states EPA participates on several USCRTF working groups Recent products of these working groups that the EPA helped to develop include: The Corals and Climate Adaptation Design Tool can be used by coral reef managers to incorporate climate-smart design into their programs and projects at any stage of planning and implementation The tool has been used with partners in Guánica Bay This Handbook on Coral Reef Impacts provides a review of the federal authorities and territory roles and responsibilities; a compendium of current best practices—science-based methodologies for quantifying ecosystem functions or services; and a general overview of basic protocols available for use when assessing impacts to coral reef ecosystems and mitigating or restoring for unavoidable impacts to coral reef ecosystems including the use of appropriate compensatory action to replace the lost functions and services The USCRTF Watershed Partnership Initiative Priority Ecosystem Indicators document provides coastal managers and watershed coordinators faced with modest budgets a suite of recommended ecological indicators and measurements to include in their watershed-specific monitoring plans The recommended ecological indicators and measurements help determine the efficacy and evaluate the success of management efforts to reduce land-based sources of pollution on coral reef ecosystems A user-friendly programmatic checklist developed to help managers and watershed coordinators identify programmatic needs for the successful implementation of a ridge to reef watershed management plan and assessment; natural and social economic research and modeling; outreach and education; and management and stewardship The U.S. Federal Government is a member of the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI),a partnership between Nations and organizations which strives to preserve coral reefs and related ecosystems around the world Surveys from the air and on water show a few reef groups such as the Ribbon Reefs in the far north and the Swains and Pompey reefs in the south are consistently escaping severe bleaching while their neighbouring reefs suffer But how? In our new research we found their survival is due to cold water most of these reefs are periodically bathed in cooler water even as other parts of the reef bake in marine heatwaves This stems from the phenomenon called upwelling where cooler waters from the deep mix with warm surface waters These reefs are likely to be buffered from the worst of climate change While the world’s oceans are heating up steadily the deeper waters remain cooler than surface waters Our modelling suggests cold currents could protect these vital refuges at least into the 2080s even if continued high emissions lead to sea surface temperatures 2-3°C hotter than now Safeguarding these refuges offers the best chance to preserve some of the reef’s rich array of species and – potentially – to allow corals to adapt to new heat regimes and eventually repopulate degraded reefs heat stress can make coral polyps bleach by expelling their symbiotic algae These colourful “zooxanthellae” algae provide coral energy and nutrition from photosynthesis in exchange for shelter Bleached coral can recover if given a reprieve Climate change is loading the dice for more heat, more often. This is why we are now seeing parts of the Great Barrier Reef record the worst coral loss in 39 years we looked at why some reefs are less affected by heat We found upwellings of cool water are protecting them The reefs are climate refuges – areas where local conditions allow species to survive while other areas become unlivable We define these cooler refuges as areas where average summer sea surface temperatures are at least 1°C cooler than nearby regions These safer zones lie along the ends of the northern and southern Great Barrier Reef and run over 200 kilometres along the continental shelf Off northern Australia in the eastern Torres Strait lie the Ribbon Reefs These climate refuges are located near a steep continental slope with deep channels a key refuge is the Swains and Pompeys reef complex These reefs lie right on the continental drop off where the East Australian Current raises cold water closer to the surface When strong tidal currents flood through narrow reef channels cooler water from the deep can be drawn up over the continental shelf and mixed with warm surface water acting like a cold bath for the fringing reefs and giving relief to coral These effects can last up to a week or more Currents can trap these cooler waters behind a long we looked for unusually cool water in satellite temperature maps and ocean models to see if these life-sustaining cool flows would persist in the 2050s under a high emissions scenario The good news: currents of cool water will continue at least to 2080 This is because even as surface waters warm and marine heatwaves arrive more often the currents carrying cooler water to the surface in these refuge reefs will continue even deeper waters will warm to a level that coral cannot tolerate the South Equatorial Current carries warm water westward toward the Barrier Reef but then splits into the north-flowing Gulf of Papua Current and the south-flowing East Australian Current Our research found the location of the split is steadily moving southward This could change where current-dependent larvae of coral and coral-eating crown of thorns starfish end up But our modelling shows these changes won’t greatly affect upwellings over our time period damage from shipping and crown of thorns outbreaks also pose threats to these remote reefs That’s not to say we should give up on tackling threats to the reef more broadly – only that these reefs are particularly valuable Could coral on these more protected reefs adapt fast enough to take advantage of cool upwellings could heat-adapted coral larvae repopulate worse-hit areas some version of the Great Barrier Reef might survive Sharply reducing emissions is our best option to control global warming and help the Great Barrier Reef endure into the next century This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article We are committed to child safety and to the implementation of Child Safe principles and procedures We could not sign you up to receive our newsletter Please try again later or contact us if this persists CSIRO acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land, sea and waters, of the area that we live and work on across Australia. We acknowledge their continuing connection to their culture and pay our respects to their Elders past and present. View our vision towards reconciliation Find out how we can help you and your business Get in touch using the form below and our experts will get in contact soon CSIRO will handle your personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and our Privacy Policy This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply Latest Earthquakes Calif. — A new study shows coral reef restoration in Florida and Puerto Rico could save thousands of lives and prevent hundreds of millions of dollars in damage and economic disruption each year Restoration efforts would most benefit children Researchers developed a modeling system to quantify the value coral reef restoration could provide to 1,000 kilometers The research compared how much flooding storms could cause with and without coral reef restoration at a 10 square meter Researchers then determined how many people and how much property and economic activity reef restoration could protect by preventing coastal flooding "Coral reefs are natural coastal barriers that can substantially reduce coastal flooding and erosion,” said Curt Storlazzi lead author and research geologist from the U.S we've lost a lot of reefs to global and local stressors and restoring them can re-establish the protection they once provided." Reefs can absorb and weaken damaging waves waves that hit shores are smaller and cause less flooding and erosion Restoring degraded or destroyed coral reefs could protect nearly 3,000 people each year in Florida and Puerto Rico alone Reefs could also prevent more than $391 million in damage to property and lost economic activity annually Using a budget of $3 million per kilometer the study calculates a benefit-to-cost analysis of reef restoration and maintenance About half of the budget is allocated to establishing reefs and the other half to maintenance the value of property and economic activity protected from storm damage would be greater than the cost of reef restoration “This approach represents a massive advance in characterizing the effectiveness of nature-based infrastructure for coastal protection Modeling benefit-to-cost of protection and/or restoration can also be applied to other ecosystems this modeling system can be used to assess the impacts of future changes in storms or sea level helping us to measure when and how cost effective it is to adapt.” Vulnerable populations are disproportionately exposed to risks from natural hazards Restoration could provide monumental benefits to the people who most need help This study shows that vulnerable populations could receive two- to three times more protection from flooding relative to the general population “Our goal in this study was to provide sound science to identify who benefits from restoration and where those benefits are felt most,” said Storlazzi "We want people to understand that restoring coral reefs isn't just about protecting beautiful and diverse habitats This study also provides a framework to calculate benefit-to-cost analyses for coral reef restoration in hazard risk reduction This establishes an avenue for coral restoration projects to be considered for post-disaster mitigation funding from agencies like the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the U.S alongside traditional risk-reduction methods such as bulkheads or breakwaters Coral reef restoration can be longer lasting than manmade structures alone manmade structures like levees or seawalls would need to be made taller coral reefs are living animals and can grow with changing sea levels “Most hazard mitigation and disaster recovery funding supports artificial infrastructure Director of the UCSC Center for Coastal Climate Resilience and a co-lead on the project “By valuing the benefits of natural infrastructure we level the playing field and open major new funding opportunities for reef restoration.” What about the value coral reefs provide industries such as tourism This study only considers the economic benefits of avoided damage the true economic value of coral reef restoration is likely much higher The new study by the U.S. Geological Survey, University of California, Santa Cruz, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration titled “Hybrid coral reef restoration can be a cost-effective nature-based solution to provide protection to vulnerable coastal populations” was published today in the journal Science Advances. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adn4004 Parts of the U.S. Government are closed. This site will not be updated; however NOAA websites and social media channels necessary to protect lives and property will be maintained. See www.weather.gov for critical weather information. To learn more, see www.commerce.gov Climate change poses a major threat to coral reefs. Download this infographic | Infographic Text Climate change is the greatest global threat to coral reef ecosystems Scientific evidence now clearly indicates that the Earth's atmosphere and ocean are warming and that these changes are primarily due to greenhouse gases derived from human activities Climate change will affect coral reef ecosystems changes to the frequency and intensity of tropical storms all of these impacts dramatically alter ecosystem function as well as the goods and services coral reef ecosystems provide to people around the globe Increased greenhouse gases from human activities result in climate change and ocean acidification The world's ocean is a massive sink that absorbs carbon dioxide (CO2) Contributing factors that increase greenhouse gases in the atmosphere include burning fossil fuels for heat and energy Shrink your carbon footprint to reduce greenhouse gases Do your part to help improve overall coral reef condition Many coastal and island communities depend on coral reef fisheries but overfishing can deplete key reef species and damage coral habitat Show all news, opinion, videos and press releases matching → When the water off the coast of Florida reached nearly 38C last year turning deathly white after corals ejected the symbiotic algae that provide them with food via photosynthesis The Coral Restoration Foundation (CRF), based in the Florida Keys, cultivates coral in 6,000 square metres of ocean-based nurseries. It lost half of the corals it was rearing in nurseries for transplantation onto the region’s degraded reefs, and suffered the near-total death of the threatened acroporid corals it had been painstakingly restoring It was a major blow to efforts to restore damaged reefs and symptomatic of how the current playbook for helping corals in uncomfortably hot water is struggling to cope with surging temperatures The state of coral reefs globally has led to increasingly alarming warnings from scientists, as ocean temperatures have broken records month after month in 2023 and 2024. After summer 2023, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) extended its alert scale for coral heat warnings the highest being “near complete mortality” “Each time we break and blast through records even for the scientific community,” says Lizzie McLeod global ocean director at The Nature Conservancy Attempts to restore depleted coral cover through coral gardening assisted migration (by harvesting larvae) and assisted evolution (rearing corals in an aquarium) are prohibitively expensive and unworkable at any meaningful scale Coral reefs cover less than 1 per cent of the world’s surface area, yet support 25 per cent of all marine species. Vital for coastal communities, an estimated one billion people rely on them for food and livelihoods A vast number of homes and businesses are protected from damage during storms by reefs that dissipate the power of waves As concern has grown, attempts to protect reefs from heat have spread. Protective screens have been erected as underwater parasols over some reefs. Divers have been banned from popular areas to reduce potential damage. In some cases, corals have been physically moved to deeper cooler waters or taken out of the ocean entirely for safekeeping in aquariums There has also been a surge of interest in reef restoration projects, which have proliferated around the world. Many focus on identifying those species and locations where corals are proving more resilient to heat stress Their genetics are then reproduced using cultivated coral to restore damaged reefs and make them more resilient to climate change transplanting and re-attaching coral colonies or branch fragments to repair a degraded site – is expensive and labour-intensive because it requires very large numbers of corals per hectare Some scientists are sceptical that such projects are viable for the long-term survival of reefs a consortium of G20 countries and the International Coral Reef Initiative said new restoration tools were needed because most methods were suitable only for small-scale intervention In March, professor Terry Hughes of Australia’s James Cook University wrote: “Attempts to restore depleted coral cover through coral gardening assisted migration (by harvesting larvae) and assisted evolution (rearing corals in an aquarium) are prohibitively expensive and unworkable at any meaningful scale.” Hughes was citing a recent feasibility study conducted by the Australian government that eliminated the option of assisted migration, due to its risks. Another study found the Great Barrier Reef would need an additional 10,000 hectares of coral tissue to increase its coral cover by just 1 per cent The Florida team remains upbeat after their 2023 setback and evacuated representative samples of corals to onshore facilities to try and safeguard the reef’s genetic diversity Lessons learned from other extreme weather events also helped When hurricane Irma hit the Florida Keys in 2017 it wiped out around 50 per cent of all the corals the team had restored since it started work in 2007 CRF’s senior director of strategic engagement she says her teams restored more coral than in the 10 years leading up to it The reefs off Florida are among the most degraded in the world due to pollution, climate change and other pressures. They were at just 2 per cent of their historical range before the most recent bleaching But Grainger remains positive her programme can help turn things around “We’re very confident that in the next two to three years we’ll be able to get as many corals back onto the [restored] reefs as we lost last year,” she says The experience will help the group improve the resilience of its nurseries and its future programmes Last year’s heat also shed new light on the genetic diversity of coral Grainger says the same species of coral reacted differently depending on location demonstrating that coral resilience hinges on multiple factors including bacteria and viruses around the coral “Corals that were very resilient in one location were not the same in another That’s really critical – there is resilience in genetic diversity,” she says Others see hope in improved collaboration to accelerate the sharing of discoveries on how corals respond to heat the insights into coral genetics that were made possible by Grainger’s team of scientists With this acceleration in mind, the Marine Ecological Research Management AID (Mermaid) open-source platform was created in 2020 by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Researchers collect reef data underwater with pencils and clipboards This has traditionally been followed by hours of manual data entry and checking using spreadsheets director of coral reef conservation at the WCS such laborious data-logging processes have significantly delayed decisions on how to manage reefs more than 2,000 scientists in 35 countries can now put their clipboard observations on reef health directly into the platform This makes them available to colleagues much more quickly where community elders decided to close their local marine reserve to fishing after scientists using Mermaid were able to share data directly with them The data showed that though the reef was recovering from a cyclone in 2016 fish populations were still below sustainable thresholds “Tools like Mermaid can really bring together this data at the scales and on the timelines that are needed,” she says “It’s just unacceptable that we don’t have a global picture of the status and trends of coral reefs that’s not already years out of date.” The Nature Conservancy is also stepping up collaboration. Its “super reefs” project aims to identify areas of coral that do less badly in warmer water and therefore have potential to reseed neighbouring reefs It wants the findings to be quickly translated into lessons for restoration practitioners and applied in the field “There’s often a miscommunication between scientists and conservationists A lot of great research is never applied,” says Annick Cros there are requests from reef managers that are not heard by researchers.” Run in collaboration with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Stanford University in the US the project is currently searching for super reefs in the Marshall Islands and the Bahamas Scientists working for the UN’s climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, predict that reefs will decline by a further 70-90 per cent at 1.5°C of global warming above pre-industrial temperatures with losses of more than 99 per cent at 2°C Understanding and restoring reefs is therefore just one part of the equation needed to save coral in the long-term; drastic reductions in greenhouse gases and local pollution are also vital “Our role is not necessarily to maintain reefs the way we know them today,” Cros says “It is to keep the ecosystem functioning for as long as we can to give communities time to either change livelihood and for us to come up with better solutions for climate change and all the other things that are impacting reefs.” Grainger says banking the genetic material of the corals is effectively “putting our finger in the dam” “We’re working to restore these ecosystems for the communities that depend on them – we can’t abandon them even if our work is wiped out every 10 years,” she says “We’re keeping these [coral] populations from going extinct and we have the capacity to bring them back on a massive scale But if we don’t work towards a carbon-negative future then coral reefs really don’t stand a chance.” This article was originally published on Dialogue Earth under a Creative Commons licence Your support helps to strengthen independent journalism which is critically needed to guide business and policy development for positive impact Unlock unlimited access to our content and members-only perks The dates displayed for an article provide information on when various publication milestones were reached at the journal that has published the article activities on preceding journals at which the article was previously under consideration are not shown (for instance submission All content on this site: Copyright © 2025 Elsevier B.V. Metrics details We identified four primary substrate types: coral with algae-covered substrate predominating and projected to persist Our results underscore the urgency of monitoring reef health and highlight the potential limitations of satellite assessment This research enhances understanding of reef dynamics and offers a framework for identifying vulnerable areas which are crucial for effective conservation efforts New web-mapping software allows cross-referencing findings with aerial imagery to indicate impact on calculated area or quantify reef substrate type further investigation into the current reef structures of Barbados is both timely and critical leveraging advanced technology to reassess and enhance conservation strategies As the MPA covers the middle region and has high protection levels we propose the middle region will have low area loss and a low rate of change previously categorized as highly degraded in 1996 with low protection levels will have a higher rate of change and overall higher area loss Rate of change in surface area of reef sites from 1950–1991 (left) and 1991–2023 (right) Decadal changes in surface area of reefs based on location from (2013–2023) Clustering of decadal percent loss changes in reefs based on location The value in the parenthesis represents the standard deviation of the average percent loss with the highest loss being Six Mens with 24% loss followed by Heywoods (23.24%) and Paynes Bay 1 (23.42%) in 1991 Identified substrate and predicted dispersal of substrate across Bellairs (A), Sandy Lane (B), and Paynes Bay (C) (Satellite imagery and maps were created using ArcGIS Pro (version 3.2.2). Available at: https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-pro/overview.) where a combination of fisherman extraction and tourism indicated a continuous decrease in the spatial change of coral colonies from 1980 to 2018 Heywood (A and B) and Paradise Beach (C and D) from 2013 (left column) and 2022 (right column) with and without anthropogenic developmental (artificial breakers and dredging ) impacts (Satellite imagery and maps in this figure was generated using Google Earth Pro (version 7.3.6.9796). Available at: https://www.google.com/earth/versions/#earth-pro) This underscores the critical importance of ground-truthing and considering the nearest-neighbor relation which better entails analyzing the spatial relationships between reef sites to understand substrate variations and ecological dynamics the same processes and pattern observations need to be recognized widely and consistently applied to coral ecosystem work This could combat further shifts and hopefully sustain the overall available area and present substrate integrating various research findings and methodologies provides valuable insights into the complex dynamics of coral reef ecosystems It underscores the urgency of implementing holistic management strategies to safeguard these invaluable marine habitats Our reef structures are degrading in some areas but can be effectively monitored with satellite for structure assessments if ground-truthing for substrate conditions is conducted many organizations have maximized their reach into the oceans and created higher-resolution open-access ocean assessment tools With the continuation of developments like this assessments that could tackle structure and substrate are soon to come Further exploration into the temporal dynamics of substrate alterations and their consequential impact on overall reef area loss would provide critical knowledge Reef Site Locations along the West Coast of Barbados (Satellite imagery and maps were created using ArcGIS Pro (version 3.2.2). Available at: https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-pro/overview.) Flow chart of reef site assessment methods for both polygon processing and substrate verification The total number of included reefs analyzed for the rate of change in reef surface area was 18 Fourteen of Lewis’ original 20 were included in this analysis Each reef was measured in ArcGIS Pro Version 3.2 using polygons for perimeter and surface area The equation Rate = $\:{(x}_{1\:\:}-\:{{x}_{2})/({y}_{1\:}\:-\:{y}_{2})}_{}$was used where the numerator represents the surface area at a specific year ($\:{(x}_{1\:\:}$and $\:{(x}_{2\:\:}$) and the denominator ($\:{y}_{1\:}$and $\:{y}_{2}$)represents the change with respect to time (or the difference between the observation years) This equation allows us to measure how quickly the surface area changes over time The size of the rate of change in surface area tells us how fast the change is happening we decided to consider location again and include a protection level All reefs were kept for further decadal analysis with the addition of DeadTree reef due to its proximity to the other reefs A random intercept mixed effect linear regression model estimated via maximum likelihood with year as a level-1 variable was fitted to identify any significant change to Surface Area and Year To assess decadal change comparing 2013 to 2023 paired t-tests and a random intercept linear mixed effect model estimated via maximum likelihood with year as a level-1 variable and protection level and location as level-2 variables were conducted Assumptions for the normality of residuals were examined post hoc and adequately met Mixed effects models were performed using the R packages nlme Version 4_1.1–35.1 The final best-fitting mixed effect model based on BIC was estimated using an AR(1) covariance matrix Cluster analysis was performed utilizing Gower Distance This approach supports both quantitative and qualitative variables Reefs that were not missing surface area in 2013 and 2023 were included in the analysis The optimal number of clusters (k = 4) was determined using silhouette plots The cluster plot was constructed using the k-medoids algorithm Features considered for clustering included location Cluster analysis was performed using the R packages cluster Version 2.1.6 and factoextra Version 1.0.7 Average cluster values were calculated because they play a crucial role in cluster analysis as they provide insight into the distribution and composition of clusters Calculated estimations were rendered to depict surface area in 1950 and 2023 based on available data and drawings These serve as visualizations of predicted reef layouts at previously highly degraded locations 2023 GPS coordinates as geotagged images taken while ground truthing for both Sandy Lane locations (Satellite imagery and maps were created using ArcGIS Pro (version 3.2.2). Available at: https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-pro/overview.) This was derived to identify ecological shifts in the environment the development of rubble as a potential habitat and to understand what parts of the originally identified reef were categorized as hard coral Coral is defined as hard coral or hard standardized substrate that is not white (bleached) or deep brown (dead) Algae was defined as smothering organisms on hard surfaces Rubble was described as a hard substrate completely covered in sediment with randomized texture and/or pattern sand was defined as no hard substrate present and only uniform soft terrain where any attachment is rare (see examples of substrate categories in Supplementary Figure S7) Substrate identification visual verification method: coral identified geotag image example and classification descriptions of each section ArcGIS Pro Version 3.2 was used for substrate layer descriptive analysis and processing To identify the reliability or agreement of our substrate results from each verification method an Intraclass Correlation Coefficient or ICC was conducted All analyzed images were converted to substrate-categorized GPS points and deposited onto five of their corresponding reef sites Geotagged images were sorted by site and substrate category using color Each geotagged point was used to predict the regional substrate for the edge of each reef site A 25-meter buffer was applied to limit analytics to the designated research site Calculated estimations were then rendered to depict visualizations of predicted and identified substrates at each location (see Supplementary Information for details on interpolated map layering) Raw satellite imagery for Barbados from 2013 to 2023 is available on Google Earth Pro and code required to generate percent loss and further analysis are available upon request Please use email listed for the corresponding author Community involvement in management for maintaining coral reef resilience and biodiversity in southern Caribbean marine protected areas Economic Implications of Coral reef Degradation Ecosystem management tools to study natural habitats as wave damping structures and coastal protection mechanisms Coral reefs are critical for our food supply One-third of reef-building corals face elevated extinction risk from climate change and local impacts Towards modelling the future risk of cyclone wave damage to the world’s coral reefs Stony coral tissue loss disease decimated Caribbean coral populations and reshaped reef functionality Tosic, M. Impacts of landuse and runoff water quality on coral reef environments in Barbados. (2007). https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/5t34sn113 Coral reef disturbance and resilience in a human-dominated environment Evidence from aerial photography of structural loss of coral reefs at Barbados Apparent timing of density banding in the Caribbean coral Siderastrea siderea suggests complex role of key physiological variables Toward a multi-stressor theory for coral reefs in a changing world Two decades of carbonate budget change on shifted coral reef assemblages: Are these reefs being locked into low net budget states Policies for potentially inundated island nations for the retention of marine resources and rights of associated under-water features and exclusive economic zones Climate resilience in marine protected areas and the ‘Protection Paradox’ The Barbados (Alias Folkestone) Marine Reserve Case Study of the Folkestone Marine Park and Reserve Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI) Technical Report 281 Mapping of coral reefs with multispectral satellites: A review of recent papers Improving coral monitoring by reducing variability and bias in cover estimates from seabed images Coral reef degradation at an atoll of the western Colombian caribbean Degradation of coral reefs under complex impact of natural and anthropogenic factors with Nha Trang Bay (Vietnam) as an example A regional assessment of coral restoration within the Western Atlantic with a case study of Barbados Expanding marine protected areas to include degraded coral reefs The impact of tourism and personal leisure transport on coastal environments: A review Detection of coral reefs degradation using geospatial techniques around Saint Martin’s Island A metagenomic-based study of two sites from the Barbadian reef system Limitations to coral recovery along an environmental stress gradient The biology and ecology of coral rubble and implications for the future of coral reefs Material legacies can degrade resilience: Structure-retaining disturbances promote regime shifts on coral reefs Coral rubble dynamics in the Anthropocene and implications for reef recovery Evaluating the precariousness of coral recovery when coral and macroalgae are alternative basins of attraction Terrestrial degradation impacts on coral reef health: Evidence from the Caribbean Land use impacts on coral reef health: A Ridge-to-reef perspective Translating the 10 golden rules of reforestation for coral reef restoration A benthic substrate classification method for seabed images using deep learning: Application to management of deep-sea coral reefs Using coral color to indicate coral health in five caribbean species Coral point count with excel extensions (CPCe): A visual Basic program for the determination of coral and substrate coverage using random point count methodology A coral reef health study and its problem in Leti In IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science A quick and clean photographic method for the description of coral reef habitats Download references This research was funded by a Level 1 grant from the National Geographic Society and by the International Coral Reef Society Ruth Gates Award All permits were acquired from the Coastal Zone Management Unit (CZMU) for coral reef research (REF CZO1/9/94-183) We thank the NSF Advanced Studies Institutes (ASI) program (NSF OISE-2154238) in Advanced Studies of Coastal Marine Environments for inspiring our research through their instruction of advanced computing techniques which prompted our exploration into the concept discussed in this publication We thank Ashlyn Ford for assisting with all fieldwork and outdoor data collection and Micah Floyd for visualization assistance the University of the West Indies Cave Hill and the McGill Research Station for their immense support and assistance in bringing this project to fruition Marine and Environmental Science Department University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill performed project administration responsibilities and conducted fieldwork with a volunteer diver AG carried out substrate analysis and created the resulting figures and SL performed mixed effect and cluster analyses and rendered the resulting figures Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-83720-w Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science While April - and Earth Month - may now have passed, here at MC UK, we celebrate protecting our planet, eco-preservation, and doing your bit for the earth year-round. That said, the month does offer us a moment to reflect on the current state of the climate. While most of us are doing our bit to embrace sustainable living That said, in an era of climate anxiety and concern over greenwashing and the declining rainforest, it’s not always easy to find stories that feel hopeful. While we can do our best to shop B-Corp brands sustainable fashion brands and do our small part for the planet But deep under the sea is one place where hope is desperately needed - and can be found and if you’re looking for something hopeful to inspire your actions “Your lives are dependent on reefs in some way or another, even if you never see one,” says Professor David Smith, Chief Marine Scientist at Mars a fisherman shares how his neighbours’ homes have been washed away by coastal erosion But Reef Builders offers something rare in environmental storytelling: hope A post shared by The Sheba Hope Grows™ Program (@shebahopegrows) That’s the question at the heart of Reef Builders, a new documentary presented by Sheba which follows one of the world’s largest and most ambitious coral restoration programmes The film offers a rare look at how restoration works and how different communities are coming together to make it happen The initiative takes place in more than 70 active sites across Indonesia and Hawai’i and shows that coral restoration isn’t just possible but extremely powerful when we come together to take action At its core is the ‘Reef Star’: a handmade star-shaped steel structure placed on degraded reefs giving coral fragments a stable surface to grow on “The art of restoration is really about giving nature a little energy,” explains Professor Smith “You’re not rebuilding from scratch… you’re just helping the reef remember how to heal itself.” What makes Reef Builders stand out from other climate documentaries is its focus on the people behind the science and associate producer on the project - puts it: “I wanted to give our flowers to the people already doing the work the local communities who come together to rebuild the reef The film captures what restoration really looks like: collaboration “I was surprised by how fast coral can grow when given the chance,” Cravalho tells Marie Claire UK “It’s a man-made solution to a man-made problem At a time when climate storytelling can feel rather heavy or even hopeless Reef Builders offers something rare: a story of recovery they have day jobs,” Cravalho tells Marie Claire UK “And they still give their time to restore the ocean “I don’t have a scientific degree,” she said “But I think I make up for that with excitement… I love being young and getting to show that we can all be part of this “Our creation story begins with the coral polyp,” she added and not separated by it - by a species of coral that can’t even speak - that’s what brought us together.” As Professor David Smith puts it: “We are an island nation and the ocean needs coral reefs to function properly.” “We don’t need a thousand scientists,” Smith says Metrics details Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS) are used worldwide to assess cryptic diversity such as immersion duration and/or deployment and retrieval seasons Here we studied temporal and seasonal variability in coral reef cryptic communities sampled with 15 ARMS on a single coral reef slope site at Reunion Island Settlement patterns and temporal succession of Eukaryote communities were investigated across three immersion times (6 months Both markers detected different taxa with different resolutions but broadly similar patterns of community composition and structure While OTU diversity of communities did not change with immersion time and season these parameters significantly affected community structure and composition Our results showed a decrease of the similarity of ARMS communities with duration of immersion and a strong temporal turnover of species with only a small proportion of the diversity persisting over time The small proportion of OTUs assigned at phylum level highlights the uniqueness of the Mascarene cryptobiome We further presumed that community composition will change over time with short immersion times (6 months) reflecting the early colonizers community and the two longer immersion times reflecting later successional stages If the ecological succession is driven by deterministic processes we expect to observe an increasing similarity among ARMS replicates over time if the succession is driven by stochastic events the similarity among ARMS replicates is expected to decrease reflecting the different succession trajectories of the cryptic reef communities in ARMS replicates numerous reef species have reproductive seasonality when light and temperature reach their annual maxima we expect to observe differences in community composition according to the season of deployment or retrieval (a) Schematic view of an Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structure (ARMS); (b) Timeline of deployment and retrieval of the 5 batches of triplicate ARMS used in this study The red/blue colour gradient on the bars represents the seasonality and thus the seawater temperature: red for hot season blue for cool season and purple for both inter-seasons taxonomy was assigned against both local and SILVA 138.1 databases using hierarchical steps: 1/ blast against local database of 164 unique sequences at 99% similarity (qiime feature-classifier classify-consensus-blast); 2/ identification of the Last Common Ancestor (LCA) with a threshold of 99% similarity against MIDORI; 3/ LCA method with a threshold of 97% similarity against the local and SILVA 138.1 databases merged Seasonal variations in environmental parameters were tested using one-way ANOVA and when significant effects were detected post-hoc Tukey tests with single-step adjustment of probability were conducted Environmental parameters during the study period Dashed lines represent the smoothed means under a GAM model After processing and filtering, the 18S dataset contained a total of 5,621 OTUs, of which 959 OTUs (17%) were assigned to Eukaryota (Table 1) The COI datasets contained a total of 4,722 (OTU99) and 4,870 (OTU97) OTUs but only 438 (OTU99; 9.3%) and 316 (OTU97; 6.4%) were assigned to Eukaryota and only half of these could be assigned to species level Composition of the assemblages at taxa category level for each molecular marker (horizontal blocks) and each fraction (vertical blocks) Letter codes below plots indicate the season of deployment and retrieval: C = cool the immersion time of ARMS significantly affected the cryptobiome communities retrieved they were significantly different among the three immersion times at the ARMS level (pairwise.adonis the communities retrieved after 1 year differed significantly from those retrieved after shorter or longer times (pairwise.adonis the community after 6 months was significantly different from the one after 1 year immersion (pairwise.adonis the communities present at the ARMS level after 6 month immersion differed significantly from the one after immersion for 1 year (pairwise.adonis the communities recovered after 1 year were significantly different from those recovered after shorter or longer immersion times (pairwise.adonis the communities were significantly different between all three immersion times (pairwise.adonis The linear mixed-effect models including random effect of ARMS were not significantly different from the more parsimonious models with only the fixed effect of the immersion time Between ARMS batches immersed for 1 year and for 2 years the Simper analyses highlighted a decrease of solitary ascidians (Class Stolidobranchia) and an increase in colonial ascidians (Class Aplousobranchia) in the 106–500 µm and sessile fractions of the 18S marker The 18S marker also showed a general trend of higher abundance (reads numbers) of Rhodophyta (but not Ceramiales) in the hot season Number and proportion of unique and shared OTU99% for the COI among the three immersion times for the datasets ARMS level and the three fractions. Ellipse sizes are proportional. Ternary plots of Jaccard similarity and the partitions of beta diversity (replacement and richness difference) at ARMS level and for the three fractions obtained from the OTU99% of the COI metabarcoding Ternary plots are shown for the total experiment (All) as well as within modalities and within and among immersion times Red dots and numbers in brackets on the axis labels represent the mean values of each diversity component Increasing immersion times resulted in decreasing community similarity among ARMS replicates (ESM 17) for the ARMS deployed during the hot season for which three immersion times were available the similarities among 6-months replicates reached 38 ± 3% whereas the similarities among 2-years ARMS were 29 ± 3% While there was no significant difference between the intra-modality similarities of the three immersion times (KW the similarities among intra-modalities were significantly higher than similarity among two modalities (6 months vs The analyses of the beta diversity component showed an increased species replacement between 6 months (48 ± 10%) and 1 year (57 ± 2%) followed by increasing richness differences among replicates between 1 (10 ± 4%) and 2 years (19 ± 12%) of immersion (ESM 17.2) although those differences were not significant (KW however these differences in Jaccard similarities were not significant; KW Comparison of our results with previous studies also needs to consider (1) the OTU clustering threshold; (2) the filtration step (removing bacteria or keeping only a subset of taxa like metazoans); (3) the completeness of the local reference database and (4) the number of sites studied thus diminishing the numbers of assigned COI OTUs The DNA of mobile organisms found in the sessile fraction might be cellular debris especially for fish while gastropod eggs and symbiotic shrimps living inside sponges or ascidians were also observed the DNA of the sessile organisms found in the filtered samples may come from propagules and larvae or more likely due to some debris of organisms present on the plates which were disassembled in the same ARMS water we observed a decrease of annelid diversity with immersion time while arthropods reached their maximum diversity in 1-year ARMS (especially those deployed and retrieved in the hot season) showed that the top-down control by fish feeding plays a more important role during early succession (< 1 year) while environmental factors may become more important during later successional stages ARMS communities with immersion times longer than two years may tend to be more similar Further studies with longer immersion times will be necessary to reach community maturity (climax stage) and understand the processes leading to it The study site on Reunion’s outer reef slope was subject to seasonal variations in environmental conditions The spatio-temporal dynamics of cryptic communities may therefore be linked to this seasonal variability this study is the first to highlight the role of season in shaping the composition of communities sampled by ARMS alpha diversity was not significantly different between hot and cool seasons and the richness difference values remained low the seasonal variations in coral reef communities include complex interactions of environmental factors Taxon-specific studies are needed to better understand the implications of such seasonal variations with the need for building a local reference database for molecular identification of taxa This study showed that both immersion duration and season affect the composition of the communities sampled by ARMS Both parameters need to be taken into account in designing a sampling plan and in data analysis We therefore recommend to deploy and retrieve ARMS during the same time of year or season As the number of OTUs do not increase with immersion duration a year-by-year basis of ARMS deployment and recovery may allow for a more rapid assessment of changes in cryptobiome communities than the conventional immersion duration of 2 years Short immersion times are often more compatible with project funding timeframes and also reduce the risk of losing ARMS units (e.g. Given the lack of available base-line data on the temporal dynamics of the cryptobiome carrying out a short pilot study aiming to evaluate possible seasonal effects before starting a longer-term monitoring program would likely further improve the interpretation of the results the effects of immersion time and season on cryptic communities collected by ARMS were analysed systematically for the first time here Our results show that both factors need to be considered in monitoring or quantifying cryptobiome diversity patterns using ARMS and probably other standardized approaches While the overall number of OTUs collected with ARMS does not seem to depend on the immersion time or the deployment and/or retrieval season Analyses of beta diversity suggest an initial colonisation of ARMS plates by pool of pioneer taxa these are partly replaced due to the stochastic arrival of later successional taxa which lead to different communities in ARMS replicates only a small proportion of the cryptobiome community remains stable over time the season during which ARMS were deployed seems to have a greater effect on the taxa recovered than the retrieval season itself Sessile organisms appear to be more sensitive to seasonal effects Although we deployed 15 ARMS in the same location (a single site at a single depth on an outer reef slope in Reunion) this sampling effort was not sufficient to recover the total cryptobiome diversity of that site underscoring the overwhelming diversity of cryptic species present in the reef frame the small fraction of diversity that can presently be assigned highlights the uniqueness of the Mascarene cryptobiome and the need for further sampling identification and sequencing of these communities Raw reads produced in this study were deposited under the GenBank BioProject: PRJNA1061095 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bioproject/PRJNA1061095). 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Marine Biodiversity: Patterns and Processes, Assessment, Threats, Management and Conservation (Springer, 2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4697-9 Ecological succession of the sponge cryptofauna in Hawaiian reefs add new insights to detritus production by pioneering species A from-benchtop-to-desktop workflow for validating HTS data and for taxonomic identification in diet metabarcoding studies A new versatile primer set targeting a short fragment of the mitochondrial COI region for metabarcoding metazoan diversity: application for characterizing coral reef fish gut contents A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing (R Foundation for Statistical Computing Algorithm for post-clustering curation of DNA amplicon data yields reliable biodiversity estimates Simple statistical identification and removal of contaminant sequences in marker-gene and metagenomics data Exact sequence variants should replace operational taxonomic units in marker-gene data analysis A new conceptual and methodological framework for exploring and explaining pattern in presence—absence data Consumers decrease variability across space and turnover through time during coral reef succession iNEXT: Interpolation and Extrapolation for Species Diversity eulerr: Area-proportional Euler and Venn diagrams with ellipses The distribution of the flora in the alpine zone pairwiseAdonis: Pairwise multilevel comparison using adonis phyloseq: An R package for reproducible interactive analysis and graphics of microbiome census data Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4 PAST: Paleontological Statistics software package for education and data analysis Interpreting the replacement and richness difference components of beta diversity Community ecology in the age of multivariate multiscale spatial analysis Ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis (Springer-Verlag Ip, Y. C. A. et al. Seq’ and ARMS shall find: DNA (meta)barcoding of autonomous reef monitoring structures across the tree of life uncovers hidden cryptobiome of tropical urban coral reefs. Mol. Ecol. 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.16568 (2022) DNA metabarcoding marker choice skews perception of marine eukaryotic biodiversity Slow mitochondrial COI sequence evolution at the base of the metazoan tree and its implications for DNA barcoding Metapopulation theory identifies biogeographical patterns among core and satellite marine bacteria scaling from tens to thousands of kilometers Patterns of rare and abundant marine microbial eukaryotes Please mind the gap—visual census and cryptic biodiversity assessment at central Red Sea coral reefs succession and growth rates of tropical crustose coralline algae (Rhodophyta Competition on marine hard substrata: The adaptive significance of solitary and colonial strategies Cryptic faunas in reefs: Ecology and geologic importance A review of the reproductive patterns of gastropod Mollusks from Mexico Seasonal responses of a fringing reef community to eutrophication (Reunion Island Sources of particulate organic matter at the ecosystem scale: A stable isotope and trace element study in a tropical coral reef Sediment characteristics in reef areas influenced by eutrophication-related alterations of benthic communities and bioerosion processes Download references This study was supported by the research program Fonds européen de développement régional (FEDER) 20171591-0002633 CALIBIOME 2017-2022 ARMS deployments at Reunion were conducted under permit n°2020-09-DEAL/SEB/UBIO of the Direction de l’environnement de l’aménagement et du logement de La Réunion and permit n°2020-054 of the Direction de la mer Sud océan Indien Sampling was in conformity to the Nagoya protocol (declaration n°3040030) The participation to the processing of ARMS samples of Sophie Bureau the Master students Gwennaïs Fustemberg and Auriane Serval and the BSc student Amélie Verde Ferreira is greatly appreciated Marion Couëdel was supported by a PhD fellowship provided by the European Union FSE programme The authors thank all the persons who helped during field sampling and lab work Laboratory work was made possible by the Service de Systématique Moléculaire of the MNHN (UAR 2700 2AD) We are grateful to Emmanuel Corse and Matthieu Leray for their advice on lab work and bioinformatics process and Eric Goberville for his comments on the revised manuscript we thank the reviewers for constructive comments on an earlier version of the manuscript UMR 9220 ENTROPIE (Université de La Réunion Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (MNHN) AD and MC conceptualized the project and HB MG and AD acquired the funding for the project wrote the main manuscript text and prepared the figures Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-76834-8 Conservationists fear fallout from president’s proclamation on fishing in federally protected area of Pacific Ocean a federally protected area in the central Pacific Ocean spanning nearly 500,000 sq miles As one of the most pristine tropical marine environments in the world the monument is now at risk following Trump’s decision last week to unleash American commercial fishing in the area with far-reaching environmental consequences Read moreIn addition to being home to many threatened endangered and depleted species including 22 kinds of seabirds the monument contains fragile ecosystems surrounding some of the world’s most ancient coral colonies to “amend or repeal all burdensome regulations that restrict commercial fishing” in the area As part of his quest to make the US the “world’s dominant seafood leader”, Trump called the regulations “so horrible and so stupid” saying that American fishers are being “forced to go and travel four to seven days to go and fish in an area that’s not as good” A map showing Pacific Marine national monuments an attorney for the environmental conservation group Earthjustice pushed back on Trump’s claims that federal regulations are hindering American fishers “When he is saying that fisher folks from Hawaii or American Samoa need to travel for days to go fish. Well, you need to travel for days to get to these remote Pacific islands They’re some of the most remote places on Earth … and they’re certainly not right next to Hawaii,” Henkin said According to a 2023 study, in the last five years, the US-flagged purse-seine fleet only spent 0.52% of their effort fishing in the two areas where commercial fishing is currently allowed in the Pacific Islands Heritage area. Echoing similar sentiments as Henkin, David McGuire, the founder of the shark conservation group Shark Stewards, said: “It’s grandstanding … These fishermen don’t travel 2,000 or 3,000 miles … They’re already out there, four or five hundred miles. There is no incentive for them to go to the more central islands.” you won’t have the science and you won’t have the management biologists in Washington or elsewhere at universities that are funded by National Fisheries or Noaa,” McGuire said Other concerns surrounding the proclamation’s environmental impact is the potential rise in illegal fishing as well as bycatch. Research has shown that illegal unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) accounts for one of every five fish caught in the wild Greenpeace’s US project lead on ocean sanctuaries said: “Having a legal commercial fishery provides cover for illegal fishing If you just see a fishing boat going through waters you are not there watching what they’re catching.” Furthermore, despite sharks playing a critical role in maintaining healthy ecosystems, more than 100m of the oft-misunderstood animals are killed every year as part of bycatch and shark-finning It’s a special piece of America… It’s as if we had just allowed commercial hunting into a place like YellowstoneDouglas McCauley a marine biology professor at the University of California warned that the proclamation can have profound impacts on shark conservation “You can catch a lot of the tuna that you want but you also catch and kill many sharks,” he said Yet Trump’s proclamation can rapidly undo years of shark conservation in just minutes “If you open up a section of ocean that has all of these very long-lived you can decimate 100 years of conservation in almost 15 minutes of fishing because it takes so long for those sharks to rebound and regrow their populations,” McCauley said Other marine animals at risk in the monument are sea turtles. With six of the global seven sea turtle species being classified as threatened or endangered worldwide due to human activity many come into the islands to feed around the reefs Trump’s proclamation puts them at risk in various ways with McCauley saying: “Either they take a hook and bite on to the hook or drown because they cannot come up to breathe in a longline fishery or they are scooped up and drown in the course of purse-seine fishing.” a Hawaiian elder and leader with the Pacific Island Heritage Coalition pointed to the interconnectedness of the islands to the broader ocean A blacktip reef shark swims in Palmyra Atoll. Photograph: Shark Stewards“It’s an integrated kind of ecosystem that isn’t isolated by just the islands themselves … It’s difficult to think that we can divide them into separate areas and then be successful in preserving all of them. It doesn’t work that way,” he said. For environmental experts, in addition to fragile ecosystems, Trump’s proclamation will negatively impact American fishers in the long run, leading to higher seafood prices for American consumers. Read moreResearch has repeatedly shown spillover benefits from large marine protected areas including increases in catch rates outside of the areas Opening up the monument for commercial fishing will have what Hemphill describes as the “opposite effect” of what Trump’s administration hopes for “The current administration has its mentality of ‘let’s become the greatest seafood producer.’ But if you take everything then you over-exploit and the populations collapse Then what you’ll see in the long term is actually a reduction of catch,” he said Similarly, Kaho’ohalahala said: “Opening this sacred place for exploitation is short-sighted and does not consider current or future generations of Pacific People who rely on a healthy ocean and know this special ocean space as our ancestral home.” With mounting concerns surrounding the Trump administration’s environmental impact marine experts are urging the public to consider the ecological and cultural significance of marine regulated areas that are akin to national parks “It’s a special piece of America… It’s as if we had just allowed commercial hunting into a place like Yellowstone,” McCauley said As Ningaloo reef bleaches and an election looms we must hold to account those who stand in the way of our safety – the small cohort profiting from fossil fuels Late last spring, I was part of an expedition to Scott Reef, a magnificent coral atoll nearly 300 kilometres off the Kimberley coast. And while it was a privilege to be in such a remote and wonderful place, watching rare and endemic sea life drifting past, the moment I tipped from the boat in my mask and fins, I knew something was wrong. The water was too hot. Not tropical warm, but uncomfortably hot. Our first dive was over a coral garden at the crest of a sea mount. But I struggled to concentrate on what I was seeing, because of an uncanny, skin-crawling sensation that came over me at the surface. When I took a breath and got down past 8 metres, the unpleasantness receded a little, but on the way back up it overtook me like the shimmery, woozy feeling you get before you faint. “Is it just me,” I asked marine ecologist Dr Ben Fitzpatrick as we climbed back into the dinghy, “or is this water super hot?” The veteran marine scientist pointed to the boat’s sonar unit. The reading it gave was 35C. 1:27Footage shows coral bleaching at Western Australia's Ningaloo Reef – videoOur next dive was in the idyllic lagoon near Sandy Islet. As outgoing tide drained the shallows, the water grew pearly, almost opaque, like what comes out of the hot tap at home. Where the current drove down into the deep drop-off, the thermocline was visible – you could see the hottest water colliding with the cooler layers. At the surface, it was 36C. “Dear God,” I said. “It’s only November. Is this just a local anomaly?” Read moreThe way Ben dropped his mask at his feet and looked away to the horizon was not at all reassuring I told myself the boat’s instruments were a little off kilter Ben brought up the sea temperature satellite models on his laptop “You know where all this hot water is headed The Leeuwin current pushes south and drives tropical water inshore along the West Australian coast The dread in that moment of recognition haunted me for the remainder of the trip In December, we heard the first reports of corals bleaching in the Kimberley. Farther south, in January, 30,000 fish died en masse on the Pilbara Coast Last week, Ningaloo reef began to experience widespread coral bleaching Early reports had sea temperatures 4 degrees hotter than usual ‘These are not just unseasonable temperatures – they are unsafe and they’re humanly unsustainable.’ Coral bleaching on Ningaloo reef Photograph: Violeta J Brosig/Blue Media ExmouthAs Ningaloo’s many gifted photographers and videographers began to document the reef’s distress Coming so hard on the heels of the bleaching episode of 2022 Some cling to the hope that things look worse than they are Those of us who’ve been studying and defending Ningaloo for decades are trapped between rage and sorrow Because we know this was a foreseeable calamity This is what 30 years of denial and delay have brought us This is what current government policy settings produce and what they’ll continue to inflict on our coral reefs unless we turn back from the brink right now These marine heatwaves are becoming more frequent and more intense politicians and fossil fuel barrackers dismissed their warnings Such is the cost of business as usual – more heat stress Winter temperatures in the north of WA were in the 40s last year Over summer they’ve been in the high 40s for days on end Free weekly newsletterEach week our editors select five of the most interesting entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning These are not just unseasonable temperatures – they are unsafe We should not be expected to find them politically acceptable We are on track for 3C of heating Which means all coral reefs will die and vast swathes of the planet will become uninhabitable The IPCC says that if we can restrict heating to 1.5C and fewer humans would perish or be forced to live in misery But to do this we’d need to refrain from any more fossil fuel developments That means putting humanity’s long-term wellbeing first The science is clear on this – the morality should be too Elections aren’t our only opportunity to disrupt and destroy business at usual but they’re a good place to beginThe problem is that a small cohort of people make enormous and the political leaders who protect their commercial interests all deny responsibility for climate breakdown yet their role in delivering all this heat and suffering is clear and unequivocal These are the people who stand in the way of our safety with two significant elections ahead of us in WA while we’re still absorbing the week’s bad news from Ningaloo Having acknowledged our extinction crisis and the climate emergency Anthony Albanese promised to introduce more effective nature laws His government hasn’t delivered on that promise A policy failure this monumental isn’t just politically embarrassing – in the real world of blood and fur and feathers Sad to say, part of that shame can be sheeted home to my home state of Western Australia. The last-minute intervention of our premier, Roger Cook ensured the extinction of those new nature laws we should be sure to identify its sources and use that knowledge to bring about change Tim Winton is an Australian novelist. His new novel Juice is out now Metrics details Recent discussions have raised concerns about the long-term effectiveness of coral reef restoration efforts questioning whether current interventions can effectively address the ongoing loss of reef ecosystems details matter and vary greatly with respect to scale and diverse approaches are needed to maintain functional coral reef ecosystems Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout Maragos, J. E. Coral Transplantation: A Method to Create, Preserve, and Manage Coral Reefs (NOAA, 1974); https://go.nature.com/3YFGpZt Williams, D., Nedimyer, K., Bright, A. & Ladd, M. Genotypic Inventory and Impact of the 2023 Marine Heatwave on Acropora palmata (Elkhorn Coral) Populations in the Upper Florida Keys, USA: 2020–2023 (NOAA, 2024); https://doi.org/10.25923/37c0-x182 Rebuilding Coral Reefs: A Decadal Grand Challenge (International Coral Reef Society and Future Earth Coasts Download references Villela for her insights and support with the figures These authors contributed equally: Raquel S Division of Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering (BESE) King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) Helmholtz-Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity at the University of Oldenburg (HIFMB) Helmholtz-Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM) School of Natural and Environmental Sciences Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnología King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) While no competing interests exist for any of the manuscript’s authors the following information is provided for the sake of full transparency are members of the science advisory board for SECORE International are members of the advisory board for the Coral Restoration Consortium (CRC) community of practice for reef restoration is the CRC advisory board chair and senior reef strategy lead at The Nature Conservancy board member of the CRC and founder of GCS Smith is the senior director of Mars Sustainable Solutions and chief science advisor to the MSF Foundation are the co-founders of Coral Nurture Program K.E.F.’s research is co-funded by the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program a partnership between the Australian Government's Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation The positions of all co-authors are based on their expertise and remain unbiased Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-02202-z Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Anthropocene newsletter — what matters in anthropocene research, free to your inbox weekly. Researchers have discovered a rare example of ‘great fish parenting’ with a common coral reef species found to actively protect their young by eating parasites The University of Queensland’s Dr Alexandra Grutter said the team identified that a species of damselfish cared for their offspring and improved their chances of survival by eating the parasitic gnathiid isopods “In the marine environment the care of fish eggs is common but caring for the tiny larval fishes after they hatch is rare,” Dr Grutter said “In most cases the larvae leave the reef for the open ocean spiny chromis damselfish offspring found in the western Pacific Ocean never leave the reef and are cared for by both parents.” The researchers discovered the parent fish actively eat gnathiids which are common reef parasites that feed briefly on the blood of their host and leave when full “From our previous research we know gnathiids are especially harmful to juvenile fishes by reducing their swimming aerobic performance and overall survival,” Dr Grutter said The study was conducted by adding cultured parasites to two aquariums of juvenile fish – one tank with a parent fish and the second without a parent – and recording what happened over 3 days The survival rate of the juvenile fish in the tank with a parent was 3 times higher than those without a parent fish The researchers said further tests in the laboratory and in the ocean confirmed the parent fish were defensively eating gnathiids “We are now interested to learn how other young fishes without such parental care avoid suffering from gnathiid parasitic infection,” Dr Grutter said While parasite-removal services are often provided by ‘cleaner fish’ “Given how tiny the damselfish offspring are these fish parents have really come to the rescue,” Dr Grutter said “We will be keen to see if there are other examples of fish showing parental care involving the consumption of parasites.” Metrics details a consequence of stressed symbiotic relationships between corals and algae has escalated due to intensified heat stress events driven by climate change current early warning systems lack local precision spanning 2015–2017 in the Mesoamerican Reef By scrutinizing 23 stress exposure and sensitivity metrics we accurately predicted 75% of bleaching severity variation distinct thermal patterns—particularly the climatological seasonal warming rate and various heat stress metrics—emerged as better predictors compared to conventional indices (such as Degree Heating Weeks) deeper reefs with diverse coral communities showed heightened vulnerability This study presents a framework for coral reef bleaching vulnerability assessment leveraging accessible data (including historical and real-time sea surface temperature Its operational potential lies in seamless integration with existing monitoring systems offering crucial insights for conservation and management an accurate prediction of the vulnerability of bleaching is a critical aspect of the management and applied conservation of coral reefs there are no predictive frameworks designed to evaluate the cumulative effects of consecutive heat stress events or to allow the additive inclusion of other stressors that can help explain the spatial variability of coral bleaching events Our results uncovered the additive effect of seven metrics to explain ~75% of the variation of coral bleaching severity we propose a model to predict coral reef vulnerability to bleaching with a high potential for use as an early warning system for the Mesoamerican Reef transferable to other ecoregions in the wider Caribbean It can also be used to predict reefs with intrinsically more resistance to bleaching for conservation planning purposes The operational use of our model is facilitated by the accessibility of essential data sources including historical and actual sea surface temperature data These readily available datasets enable efficient implementation and integration into existing monitoring systems providing valuable insights for coral reef conservation and management efforts a Distribution of the bleaching severity index (BSI) values and the proportion of colonies in each bleaching category, each year, for all the reefs sampled. Information on the BSI’s statistical descriptors and the categories defined for coral bleaching can be found in Supplementary Table 1 b Maps illustrate the spatial distribution of the severity of coral bleaching in each year Considering the existing evidence and the results obtained in this analysis we conclude that not only the current thermal regime but also the history of heat stress of a particular reef needs to be considered to predict the risk of bleaching during a new event and recent history of exposure to heat stress is fundamental for the prediction of coral bleaching during long-lasting events The figure shows only the species with more than 500 colonies assessed during the entire period (2015–2017). The information on the overall impact observed on each species is shown in Supplementary Table 4 more diverse reefs could have more abundance of different sensitive species Our results then stress the relevance of multiple metrics and the integration of different approaches (i.e. and ecological surveys) to fully understand the range of coral responses to heat stress and the risk of bleaching on a particular reef The understanding of why shallower reefs with lower diversity could be less vulnerable to bleaching or how they handle high environmental variability or form more resistant coral communities after surviving greater past disturbances (ecological filters) requires a complex and integrative approach Conceptual diagram of an early warning system for predicting coral bleaching vulnerability within a regional framework heat stress metrics from remote sensing data and biophysical descriptors (species composition Positive and negative relationships with bleaching severity are indicated by upward and downward arrows The right panels describe the implementation process and the system's ability to improve accuracy through new information Corals were identified at the species level and assessed using three bleaching categories: pale colony and whole colony bleached with over 90% of live tissue affected; and one category for non-affected colonies Sampling was conducted throughout the whole MAR region in three periods: October–November 2015 Sites were selected based on information from previous monitoring programs in the region Site selection was stratified according to cross-shelf position (e.g. Most of the selected sites had consistent information in other regional databases (e.g. Atlantic Gulf and Rapid Reef Assessment-Healthy Reefs Initiative and we prioritized areas based on the experience and feasibility of the surveys achieved by local experts The monitoring was conducted by trained volunteers from various partner institutions of the Healthy Reefs Initiative within Mexico 266 reef-level samples/observations were obtained: 69 in 2015 weighting each category according to its ecological impact ‘n’ corresponds to the total number of colonies and ‘c’ represents the number of colonies in each of the categories of concern (c2: pale Bleaching severity was calculated for each of the reefs and each of the species considering all the colonies of each species Five different metrics were calculated to describe the sensitivity of corals to bleach, based on species composition and reef diversity (Table 1) The first step in obtaining these indicators was the selection of the database including only the colonies identified at the species level When species had no functional coefficient the value available for congeners was used (e.g. Solesnatrea hyades was used for Solenastrea bournoni) Colonies were not considered when a value for the species could not be assigned (i.e. This diversity indicator considers both the richness or number of species (s) as well as the proportion or relative abundance of each species (pi) maximum monthly mean (MMM) values were obtained from the same database this metric provides information on the relative magnitude of the heat stress event as a function of the previous year’s exposure Further information on research design is available in the Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary linked to this article All source data underlying the graphs and charts presented in the main figures of this study are available as Supplementary Material and Supplementary Data 1–2 These data include detailed site-specific metrics on coral bleaching severity and species composition used in the analyses The complete datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request Spatial and temporal patterns of mass bleaching of corals in the Anthropocene The 2014–2017 global-scale coral bleaching event: insights and impacts Temperature patterns and mechanisms influencing coral bleaching during the 2016 El Niño Global warming and recurrent mass bleaching of corals Marked annual coral bleaching resilience of an inshore patch reef in the Florida Keys: a nugget of hope Ecosystem restructuring along the Great Barrier Reef following mass coral bleaching Bleaching drives collapse in reef carbonate budgets and reef growth potential on southern Maldives reefs Global warming impairs stock–recruitment dynamics of corals Redefining thermal regimes to design reserves for Coral Reefs in the face of climate change Beyer, H. 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Softw. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v000.i00 (2017) Package ‘gbm’ - Generalized Boosted Regression Models Package ‘dismo” - Species Distribution Modeling’ Collinearity: a review of methods to deal with it and a simulation study evaluating their performance A protocol for data exploration to avoid common statistical problems Download references The authors also thank the NOAA Coral Reef Watch program for the availability of the SST data program of AIMC in the postgraduate program of Marine Science at CINVESTAV This program is acknowledged for providing four years of a CONACYT fellowship with grant numbers 340074 and 666908 to support the Ph.D Special thanks to the Coastal Biodiversity Resilience to Increasing Extreme Events in Central America (CORESCAM) research project as well as any views or opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of sponsoring organizations Laboratorio de Ecología de Ecosistemas de Arrecifes Coralinos Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional Andrea Rivera-Sosa & Jesús Ernesto Arias-González Unidad Académica de Sistemas Arrecifales Puerto Morelos managed planning and funding for fieldwork coordinating the coral bleaching monitoring response plan developed the study concept and analytical framework carried out the statistical analyses and figures with contributions from A.R.S. led the writing with contributions from all authors Communications Biology thanks Daniel Barshis anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-024-07128-y Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily. Shaping the next generation of global leaders The Oceans Graduate School engages in fundamental and applied research to find solutions for the critical issues facing our oceans Our School comprises state-of-the-art facilities around Western Australia used for world-class marine research to investigate the ocean The issues facing our oceans are complex and our School gives students not just the scientific knowledge they require resources and community involvement that is essential for the future We provide students with a science-based education and the know-how to form strong policy and governance which creates a team of leaders ready to confront global issues centres on tackling real threats our oceans face and provides graduates with the skills to lead multidisciplinary projects across the Indian Ocean Students who are interested in research projects should visit the Higher Degree by Research Application Portal and browse the Project Opportunities section All current projects and their supervisors are available in this Portal This includes PhD and Master by research projects and scholarships. You can search by research areas or a specific school see available scholarships and contact prospective supervisors You can also directly contact a potential supervisor using the discipline links (above). Find out more Find out more Micro-credentials are short professional qualifications that demonstrate your skills knowledge and experience in a given subject area These qualifications can be completed as a one-off or you can stack them up towards a higher qualification Complete a micro-credential to improve your employability and future career outcomes Find out more The Master of Ocean Leadership (MOL) provides graduates from a range of fields with ocean-related knowledge and experience across science law and environmental management to enable graduates to strategically address human challenges in ocean systems and to implement solutions for the future of our coasts and seas The Industrial Transformation Research Hub for Offshore Floating Facilities (OFFshore ITRH) is a multi-disciplinary research initiative jointly funded by industry and the Australian Research Council OFFshore ITRH are collaborating on the critical engineering challenges faced by offshore oil and gas projects by creating improved design and operating procedures The team are based at the University of Western Australia with nodes at Western Sydney University and The University of Southampton Find out more The Wave Energy Research Centre (WERC) in Albany was built to look at ways we can generate renewable energy from our oceans on an industrial scale Find out more The Centre for Offshore Foundation Systems (COFS) is a world-leading research facility used to examine offshore geomechanics and engineering Find out more The ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies undertakes world-best integrated research for sustainable use and management of coral reefs Find out more The UWA Oceans Institute delivers research and training to students and partners working to ensure what we investigate has maximum impact As a multidisciplinary marine research organisation and how these themes tie in with the ocean The Oceans Institute is the forefront of ocean science and technology knowledge providing a focal point for Indian Ocean researchers to collaborate and share ideas The greatest minds in marine and ocean biology are collaborating at our world-leading facilities The Oceans Graduate School has a range of partnerships with local national and international organisations and bodies Christophe is a Professor of Geotechnical Engineering at the University of Western Australia He is the Director of the newly established Wave Energy Research Centre in Albany and the Head of the Oceans Graduate School a multi-disciplinary research group of about 100 oceanographers Christophe graduated with a Doctorate in Soil Mechanics from the Ecole Centrale de Nantes in November 2002 and joined the University of Western Australia in July 2003 His research interests cover offshore anchoring systems and shallow foundations pipeline-soil interaction and similitude principles associated with centrifuge modelling for which he has authored over 180 referred publications He is currently spearheading several research initiatives associated with foundation systems for offshore renewables with support from local and international industry Level of engagement with Universities / Academia Christophe has undertaken over 50 research contracts with industry over the last 15 years associated with oil and gas developments all around the world and used to consult for Advanced Geomechanics He is a strong advocate of close collaboration between universities and industry to better train students inform research and optimise impact and outcomes and develop relevant support and services Dave has been working in the oil industry for over 18 years Dave is currently the Director of Consulting for Granherne / KBR in Perth Previously Dave was the engineering manager for Shell seconded into Arrow Energy in Queensland where he ran all engineering and design work on all of their upstream developments Dave has also led all deep water development and engineering work for Shell In Perth participated in 4 mega-project FIDs in Western Australia and worked in offshore operations in Australia and the North Sea Dave holds a Master’s Degree in Engineering from Gonville and Caius College and is a chartered Electrical and Petroleum engineer and a Fellow of Engineers Australia Dave is an adjunct Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Queensland and the Chairman of the Industry Advisory Board to the Oceans Graduate School at UWA Dave helped set up Shell’s involvement with UWA Dave has actively participated in linking universities and Industry in both WA and QLD David is keen to see Granherne / KBR lead the way in contractor engagement with universities and actively participate in their work as there are huge wins for both organisations from working together. Graduated from Southampton University in 1982 with an Honours Degree in Ship Science Has 25 year’s experience with the Lloyds Register Group (LR) as Project Manager for new construction Validation Classification and Certification Services Contracts dealing with Fixed and Floating Offshore Installations Jeff relocated from London to Perth in early 2004 to manage LR’s involvement in the Woodside Enfield Project and subsequently the Angel and Vincent Projects In 2008 he was appointed Oil and Gas Business Manager for Australasia Following the merger of LR's Oil and Gas Compliance and Marine businesses Jeff is currently Offshore Business Development Manager for Australasia covering all onshore and offshore compliance services to the Oil and Gas industry in the region Jeff is a UWA FOI ITRH Board Member for Lloyds Register Group represents the Lloyds Register Foundation in their ongoing support of the UWA COFS team and is focal point for miscellaneous other initiatives with the UWA team Jill is founder of a small boutique agency setup to support industry-research engagement Previously she was the GM for industry-research and innovation at NERA Deputy Director of the UWA Energy & Minerals Institute Deputy Director of the International Mining for Development Centre CEO of the Science Teachers Association and CEO of the International Association of Teachers as a Foreign Language Passionate about economic development and especially keen to see women in high-value STEM roles Jill is a Director on the Commercialisations Studies Centre Board an IMNIS mentor and Read Write Now volunteer Jill has been associated with the university and research sector for the past 10 years in an energy business development role she helped secure over $80M during this time for academic research and infrastructure is supporting the setup of a UWA Industry 4.0 digital interoperability laboratory for process control she is supporting a Cooperative Research Centre bid for Future Energy Exports and an automation centre in Karratha Jill is a passionate supporter of the university sector and in particular research engagement with industry Luke is the CEO of the Western Australian Marine Science Institution (WAMSI) a joint venture made up of 14 partners with the objective to maximise the sustainable environmental economic and social benefits from Western Australia’s marine estate by enabling outcome focussed marine science Luke was a Director and Principal Consultant for BMT Oceanica a specialist marine environmental consultancy Luke worked on developing EIA and compliance assessment of capital dredging programs such as the Oakajee Deepwater Port Albany Port Expansion Project and Post-Development Surveys for the Chevron Australia Gorgon Project Luke was also the first Principal Scientist for the Swan River Trust where he utilised his knowledge of phytoplankton ecology developed from his PhD at Curtin University and Postdoctoral position at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Luke holds adjunct Associate Professor positions at Murdoch University and Curtin University. Through the WAMSI partner membership with Curtin Luke has a strong connection with Western Australian universities and academics WAMSI has engaged Industry stakeholders in the development of long-term strategy for marine science in Western Australia through the Blueprint for Marine Science In his previous role as a Principal Consultant and Director at BMT Oceanica Luke often engaged specialists from the universities to assist with aspects of environmental impact assessment on major infrastructure projects for Oil and Gas and Port sectors Luke is a strong advocate of student programs in applied marine science Sean graduate with a BSc in Marine GeoTechnics & an MSc in Subsea Engineering in 1989 He has worked in the Oil & Gas Industry for 30 years predominantly in Subsea & Pipeline Engineering & Project Management (Design Construction and Operations); spending 15 yrs Brazil and West of Africa before moving to Western Australia to join Woodside Since 2004 Sean has been responsible for developing Woodside’s Subsea & Pipeline capability and infra-structure before moving to VP Technology in 2015 and recently; VP Remote Operations Woodside has a very strong and broad relationship with UWA across many faculties Sean has been engaged directly in ‘O-Tube’ & Flow Assurance activities and more broadly in the FutureLab (Oceanworks & RiverLab) initiatives at UWA Sean has also been involved in equivalent FutureLab initiatives at Curtin and Monash Universities all designed to encourage and stimulate collaboration and enhanced industry / academic interactions Hatton has served as Chairman of the Western Australian Environmental Protection Authority since 2015 He holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science from Humboldt State University and a doctorate from the College of Natural Resources at Utah State University Following post-doctoral studies in mathematics at the University of New South Wales he joined the CSIRO as an environmental scientist working on the many water-related challenges facing Australia. Over a 25-year career at the CSIRO Tom received the CSIRO Chairman’s Medal and the Australian Public Service Medal for his contributions to the management of Australia’s water resources and was made a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering in 2017 He is an adjunct professor at the University of Western Australia and serves on the Boards of the Oceans Institute the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research and the Western Australia Parks Foundation. Pru Ayling is currently Industry Engagement Manager at the University of Western Australia and is responsible for enabling key university initiatives in defence Pru has worked in WA State Government for over ten years and has been responsible for a range of key strategic state initiatives innovation and the Australian Marine Complex Pru works in multi-disciplinary projects across UWA and facilitates sustainable partnerships with industry and the University Stuart Smith was appointed CEO of the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) in September 2014; Australia’s independent regulator of offshore safety well integrity and environmental management of offshore oil and gas facilities around Australia Stuart spent six years as Director General for the Department of Fisheries in Western Australia (WA) with responsibilities for managing aquatic resources in federal and state waters Stuart also worked with the Department of Industry and Resources in WA as Acting Director General and a Deputy Director General he had responsibility for facilitating international trade and investment negotiating major state development projects and regulating the resources sector including onshore and offshore oil and gas safety and environmental management Before joining the WA Public Service in 2003 Stuart spent 14 years with the Australian Public Service in Canberra During this period he held various industry development and regulatory roles including positions with the Industry portfolio and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Stuart holds a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Western Australian and a Graduate Diploma in Economics from the Australian National University The Great Southern is one step closer to becoming a global leader in marine renewable energy after the Albany Visitor Centre was announced as the location for the Wave Energy Research Centre after the State Government awarded $3.75 million to The University of Western Australia Scientists from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Coral CoE) at The University of Western Australia (UWA) have found that some corals are able to combat the effects of ocean acidification by controlling their own chemistry 35 Stirling HighwayPerth WA 6009 Australia (+61 8) 6488 6000 Emergency(+61 8) 6488 2222 中文 The University of Western Australia acknowledges that its campus is situated on Noongar land and that Noongar people remain the spiritual and cultural custodians of their land Indigenous commitment Dive into your beach vacation with reef safe sunscreen that protects your skin and the ocean Reef safe sunscreens are mineral-based and avoid harmful chemicals that can leech into the water Oxybenzone and octinoxate are the main ingredients you want to avoid but you should also look for mineral-based sunscreens that use non-nano zinc or non-nano titanium (too small You should also avoid ingredients including homosalate It has a creamy-smooth application and protects your skin even in intense It leaves a light white cast for about one minute after applying With tinted and nontinted options to choose from it’s easy to add this sunscreen to your daily routine It needs to be reapplied after 40 minutes in the water You don’t need to reapply for up to four hours depending on your skin needs and sun exposure It has a thicker texture than standard sunscreens reef safe products may need to get used to the feel The stick is easy to use and allows you to apply sunscreen without getting sticky (or sandy) It leaves a white cast for about 15 minutes after application It’s lightweight and blends easily without any skin irritation The lotion sunscreen only goes up to SPF 30 protective sunscreen does not leave your skin feeling greasy or waxy It has “no added fragrance,” but it does have a light citrus smell You can wear this under makeup or on its own for daily protection that doesn’t run or pill It blends into the skin like a standard moisturizer and does not leave a white cast so you may want to pack it inside a plastic bag to prevent spills It’s lightweight and can be worn under makeup or as a standalone product It has a peachy color that may be difficult to blend in They are generally made with zinc oxide and titanium dioxide which sit on top of the skin as opposed to absorbing into the skin Standard sunscreens utilize oxybenzone and octinoxate which have a tendency to leech off into the water will also utilize non-nano zinc or titanium Reef safe sunscreens also do not utilize exfoliating beads The terms “reef friendly” and “reef safe” are not regulated; however we have noticed that many sunscreens use the term “reef friendly” when their packaging is recyclable but they may still include nano zinc or nano titanium Look for non-nano zinc or titanium for a safer The SPF level you use really depends on your skin type SPF 30 is a good level for daily protection you want to make sure to prioritize the time for effective water-resistance I know I’ll be in the water for no less than one hour so I need to prioritize a sunscreen that lasts at least 60 minutes (but 80+ is ideal) you’re still very exposed to the sun’s rays so you may also consider wearing a rashguard or wetsuit for optimal protection.