CORAL
REEFS – GEOGRAPHY
News:
Low
human activity helps corals despite warm ocean
What's
in the news?
● Simultaneously
mitigating human impacts on land and sea reduced coral loss during an
unprecedented marine heatwave in Hawaiʻi and supported coral reef persistence
after the heatwave.
Key
takeaways:
● Coral
reef ecosystems are frequently impacted by human activity on land and in the
sea; land-based disturbances include wastewater pollution, and sea-based
disturbances include overfishing.
● Corals
are especially impacted by prolonged periods of warm ocean temperatures, known as marine heatwaves, which can cause
coral bleaching and death.
Coral
Reefs:
● Coral
reefs are one of the most biologically diverse
marine ecosystems on the Earth.
● Coral
reefs play an important role in marine ecosystems and support the habitats of
flora and fauna in the sea.
● The
vast diversity of animal and plant species that contributes to its system are increasingly at risk due to climate change.
● India
with its coastline extending over 7,500 km and subtropical climatic conditions
has very few coral reef areas.
Importance
of Coral Reefs:
1.
Sustain biodiversity:
● Ecologically,
coral reefs are important because they are the counterpart to the tropical rain forest in terms of species
diversity and biological productivity in the Ocean.
● Coral
reef enables the formation of associated eco-systems which allow the formation
of essential habitats, fisheries and livelihoods.
2.
Protect coastlines:
● Coral
reefs protect coastlines from the damaging effects of wave action and tropical storms.
3.
Nutrition and Habitat:
● Coral
reefs provide habitats and shelter for many marine organisms.
● They
are the source of nitrogen and other
essential nutrients for marine food chains and assist in carbon and nitrogen
fixing
4.
Economic:
● The
fishing industry depends on coral reefs because many fish spawn there and juvenile fish spend time there before making
their way to the open sea.
● The
Great Barrier Reef generates more than 1.5 billion dollars every year for the
Australian economy, from fishing and tourism.
5.
Climate change record:
● Coral
reefs are climatologically important because they provide an accurate long-term
record of the climate change and help in extending our knowledge of seasonal
climate variability in many remote tropical oceans.
Threats
to Coral Reef:
● Coral
reef ecosystems around the world have suffered unprecedented degradation in
recent decades. Coral reef disturbances include both anthropogenic and natural
events.
● Natural causes
could include the emergence of reef-destroying mechanisms,
"bleaching," and the depletion of essential symbiotics.
● Chemical pollution
(pesticides, cosmetics, etc.), industrial pollution, mechanical damage,
nutrient loading or sediment loading, dredging, shipping, tourism, mining or
collection, thermal pollution, intensive fishing, and so on are examples of
anthropogenic causes.
● Natural disturbances
that cause coral reef damage include violent storms, flooding, extreme
temperature swings, El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events, subaerial
exposures, predatory outbreaks, and epizootics.
● Coral reef bleaching
is a common stress response of corals to many of the above-mentioned
disturbances.
Conservation
of Corals:
● Environmental Protection Act, 1986
prohibits the use of corals and sands from the beaches & coastal water for
construction & other purposes.
● India
is participatory in the Green Coast
project.
● Coastal
regulation zone rules (CRZ) ban the collection and destruction of corals along
with dredging and underwater blasting in and around coral formation.
● Concepts
of Marine Protected Areas & Marine
National Parks help in coral conservation.
○ For
example: First National Marine Park Gulf of Mannar (Gujarat), Great Nicobar
Biosphere Reserve, Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park (Andaman) are playing an
important role in Conservation of corals.
Coral reefs are an important part of the ecosystem. It
has not only ecological significance but is an important indicator of environmental health. Recent rise in coral
bleaching has raised various concerns and efforts have been made to restore the
same.