Here you can get quick access to various reports on coral reefs status, health and threats on global, regional and national levels. Select geographic area of interest or search by source/organization.
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Search Result: 2 records
1.
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Burke, L., K.Reytar, M. Spalding and A.Perry,
2011
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Reefs At Risk Revisited
World Resources Institute, Washington. 130 p.
Author
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Burke, L., K.Reytar, M. Spalding and A.Perry
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Year
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2011
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Title
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Reefs At Risk Revisited
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Source
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World Resources Institute, Washington. 130 p.
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Keywords
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status of coral reef, threat, coral reef management
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Caption
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Coral Reefs: Valuable but Vulnerable
Despite widespread recognition that coral reefs around the world are seriously threatened, information regarding which threats affect which reefs is limited, hampering conservation efforts. Researchers have studied only a small percentage of the world's reefs; an even smaller percentage have been monitored over time using consistent and rigorous methods. The World Resources Institute's Reefs at Risk series was initiated in 1998 to help fill this knowledge gap by developing an understanding of the location and spread of threats to coral reefs worldwide, as well as illustrating the links between human activities, human livelihoods, and coral reef ecosystems. With this knowledge, it becomes much easier to set an effective agenda for reef conservation.
However, coral reefs face a wide and intensifying array of threats—including impacts from overfishing, coastal development, agricultural runoff, and shipping. In addition, the global threat of climate change has begun to compound these more local threats to coral reefs in multiple ways. Warming seas have already caused widespread damage to reefs, with high temperatures driving a stress response called coral bleaching , where corals lose their colorful symbiotic algae, exposing their white skeletons. This is projected to intensify in coming decades. In addition, increasing carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions are slowly causing the world's oceans to become more acidic. Ocean acidification reduces coral growth rates and, if unchecked, could reduce their ability to maintain their physical structure. With this combination of local threats plus global threats from warming and acidification, reefs are increasingly susceptible to disturbance or damage from storms, infestations, and diseases. Such degradation is typified by reduced areas of living coral, increased algal cover, reduced species diversity, and lower fish abundance.
Coral reefs, the "rain forests of the sea," are among the most biologically rich and productive ecosystems on earth. They also provide valuable ecosystem benefits to millions of coastal people. They are important sources of food and income, serve as nurseries for commercial fish species, attract divers and snorkelers from around the world, generate the sand on tourist beaches, and protect shorelines from the ravages of storms.
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Abstract
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Online Documents
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- Copies of papers downloaded from ReefBase may be used and reproduced for non-commercial purpose only.
- If you encounter any problem viewing the PDF files, please use the latest version of Adobe Reader.
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2.
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Bryant, D., L. Burke, J. McManus and M. Spalding,
1998
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Reefs at Risk: A map-based indicator of threats to the world’s coral reefs.
World Resources Institute, 56p.
Author
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Bryant, D., L. Burke, J. McManus and M. Spalding
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Year
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1998
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Title
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Reefs at Risk: A map-based indicator of threats to the world’s coral reefs.
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Source
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World Resources Institute, 56p.
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Keywords
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REEFS AT RISK; THREAT; CORAL REEF
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Caption
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The Reefs at Risk: A Map-Based Indicator of Threats to the World's Coral Reefs, was produced by the World Resources Institute (WRI) in collaboration with the International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management (ICLARM), the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). It was the first global assessment of coral reefs to map areas at risk from overfishing, coastal development, and other human activity. The study finds that nearly 60 percent of the earth's coral reefs are threatened by human activity -- ranging from coastal development and overfishing to inland and marine pollution -- leaving much of the world's marine biodiversity at risk. In addition, the report concludes that while reefs provide billions of people and hundreds of countries with food, tourism revenue, coastal protection and new medications for increasingly drug-resistant diseases -- worth about $375 billion each year -- they are among the least monitored and protected natural habitats in the world.
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Abstract
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This report presents the first-ever detailed, map-based assessment of potential threats to coral reef ecosystems around the world.
"Reefs at Risk" draws on 14 data sets (including maps of land cover, ports, settlements, and shipping lanes), information on 800 sites known to be degraded by people, and scientific expertise to model areas where reef degradation is predicted to occur, given existing human pressures on these areas.
Results are an indicator of potential threat (risk), not a measure of actual condition. In some places, particularly where good management is practiced, reefs may be at risk but remain relatively healthy. In others, this indicator underestimates the degree to which reefs are threatened and degraded. Our results indicate that:
Fifty-eight percent of the world's reefs are potentially threatened by human activity -- ranging from coastal development and destructive fishing practices to overexploitation of resources, marine pollution, and runoff from inland deforestation and farming.
Coral reefs of Southeast Asia, the most species-rich on earth, are the most threatened of any region. More than 80 percent are at risk (under medium and high potential threat), and over half are at high risk, primarily from coastal development and fishing-related pressures.
Overexploitation and coastal development pose the greatest potential threat of the four risk categories considered in this study. Each, individually, affects a third of all reefs.
The Pacific, which houses more reef area than any other region, is also the least threatened. About 60 percent of reefs here are at low risk.
Outside of the Pacific, 70 percent of all reefs are at risk.
At least 11 percent of the world's coral reefs contain high levels of reef fish biodiversity and are under high threat from human activities. These "hot spot" areas include almost all Philippine reefs, and coral communities off the coasts of Indonesia, Tanzania, the Comoros, and the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean.
Almost half a billion people -- 8 percent of the total global population -- live within 100 kilometers of a coral reef.
Globally, more than 400 marine parks, sanctuaries, and reserves (marine protected areas) contain coral reefs. Most of these sites are very small -- more than 150 are under one square kilometer in size.
At least 40 countries lack any marine protected areas for conserving their coral reef systems.
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Online Documents
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- Copies of papers downloaded from ReefBase may be used and reproduced for non-commercial purpose only.
- If you encounter any problem viewing the PDF files, please use the latest version of Adobe Reader.
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