Climate change has long been considered as one of the greatest drivers of declining coral reefs, but the specifics of human impact have been largely unverified. In a new paper published in Nature, researchers tracked coral reef health in Hawaiʻi for 20 years—measuring increasing water acidification, land-based pollution, repercussions from a major climate event and rising water temperatures—and illustrated the undeniable contributions of human impact on coral reef health outcomes.
New research by Arizona State University, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) and Bangor University in the U.K. indicates that mitigating both local land and sea-based human impacts, especially in terms of pollutants and over-fishing, provides coral reef ecosystems with the best opportunity to persist under climate change. Along some highly populated areas on the shorelines of Hawaiʻi, wastewater pollution and urban runoff combine with fishing pressures to put immense stress on coral reefs.
The paper, “Coral reefs benefit from reduced land-sea impacts under ocean warming,” was published in Nature on August 9.
“There is a very strong perception that declining reef heath is mainly driven by climate change, which is true in the long term. However, what we are putting in our waters from our shores, as well as the amount of fishing we are doing, are huge drivers that are more immediately actionable,” said Greg Asner, senior author of the study and director of ASU’s Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science. Asner said the 20-year time frame provided a unique opportunity to reflect on solution strategies.
Researchers from Arizona State University, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) and Bangor University in the U.K. conduct underwater surveys of coral and reef fish in Hawai’i. Credit: NOAA Fisheries
These human-caused threats were most clearly demonstrated to have significant impact in 2015, when the Hawaiian Islands experienced the strongest marine heat wave on record over the past 120 years.
2023-08-09 11:24:02
Original from phys.org