Optimising Land-Sea Management for Inshore Coral Reefs.
Management authorities seldom have the capacity to comprehensively address the full suite of anthropogenic stressors, particularly in the coastal zone where numerous threats can act simultaneously to impact reefs and other ecosystems. This situation requires tools to prioritise management interventi...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2016-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5072624?pdf=render |
| _version_ | 1818864444526034944 |
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| author | Ben L Gilby Andrew D Olds Rod M Connolly Tim Stevens Christopher J Henderson Paul S Maxwell Ian R Tibbetts David S Schoeman David Rissik Thomas A Schlacher |
| author_facet | Ben L Gilby Andrew D Olds Rod M Connolly Tim Stevens Christopher J Henderson Paul S Maxwell Ian R Tibbetts David S Schoeman David Rissik Thomas A Schlacher |
| author_sort | Ben L Gilby |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Management authorities seldom have the capacity to comprehensively address the full suite of anthropogenic stressors, particularly in the coastal zone where numerous threats can act simultaneously to impact reefs and other ecosystems. This situation requires tools to prioritise management interventions that result in optimum ecological outcomes under a set of constraints. Here we develop one such tool, introducing a Bayesian Belief Network to model the ecological condition of inshore coral reefs in Moreton Bay (Australia) under a range of management actions. Empirical field data was used to model a suite of possible ecological responses of coral reef assemblages to five key management actions both in the sea (e.g. expansion of reserves, mangrove & seagrass restoration, fishing restrictions) and on land (e.g. lower inputs of sediment and sewage from treatment plants). Models show that expanding marine reserves (a 'marine action') and reducing sediment inputs from the catchments (a 'land action') were the most effective investments to achieve a better status of reefs in the Bay, with both having been included in >58% of scenarios with positive outcomes, and >98% of the most effective (5th percentile) scenarios. Heightened fishing restrictions, restoring habitats, and reducing nutrient discharges from wastewater treatment plants have additional, albeit smaller effects. There was no evidence that combining individual management actions would consistently produce sizeable synergistic until after maximum investment on both marine reserves (i.e. increasing reserve extent from 31 to 62% of reefs) and sediments (i.e. rehabilitating 6350 km of waterways within catchments to reduce sediment loads by 50%) were implemented. The method presented here provides a useful tool to prioritize environmental actions in situations where multiple competing management interventions exist for coral reefs and in other systems subjected to multiple stressor from the land and the sea. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-19T10:31:45Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-a1b24bb15d744b17a84015a8655c3d1f |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-19T10:31:45Z |
| publishDate | 2016-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj.art-a1b24bb15d744b17a84015a8655c3d1f2022-12-21T20:25:45ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032016-01-011110e016493410.1371/journal.pone.0164934Optimising Land-Sea Management for Inshore Coral Reefs.Ben L GilbyAndrew D OldsRod M ConnollyTim StevensChristopher J HendersonPaul S MaxwellIan R TibbettsDavid S SchoemanDavid RissikThomas A SchlacherManagement authorities seldom have the capacity to comprehensively address the full suite of anthropogenic stressors, particularly in the coastal zone where numerous threats can act simultaneously to impact reefs and other ecosystems. This situation requires tools to prioritise management interventions that result in optimum ecological outcomes under a set of constraints. Here we develop one such tool, introducing a Bayesian Belief Network to model the ecological condition of inshore coral reefs in Moreton Bay (Australia) under a range of management actions. Empirical field data was used to model a suite of possible ecological responses of coral reef assemblages to five key management actions both in the sea (e.g. expansion of reserves, mangrove & seagrass restoration, fishing restrictions) and on land (e.g. lower inputs of sediment and sewage from treatment plants). Models show that expanding marine reserves (a 'marine action') and reducing sediment inputs from the catchments (a 'land action') were the most effective investments to achieve a better status of reefs in the Bay, with both having been included in >58% of scenarios with positive outcomes, and >98% of the most effective (5th percentile) scenarios. Heightened fishing restrictions, restoring habitats, and reducing nutrient discharges from wastewater treatment plants have additional, albeit smaller effects. There was no evidence that combining individual management actions would consistently produce sizeable synergistic until after maximum investment on both marine reserves (i.e. increasing reserve extent from 31 to 62% of reefs) and sediments (i.e. rehabilitating 6350 km of waterways within catchments to reduce sediment loads by 50%) were implemented. The method presented here provides a useful tool to prioritize environmental actions in situations where multiple competing management interventions exist for coral reefs and in other systems subjected to multiple stressor from the land and the sea.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5072624?pdf=render |
| spellingShingle | Ben L Gilby Andrew D Olds Rod M Connolly Tim Stevens Christopher J Henderson Paul S Maxwell Ian R Tibbetts David S Schoeman David Rissik Thomas A Schlacher Optimising Land-Sea Management for Inshore Coral Reefs. PLoS ONE |
| title | Optimising Land-Sea Management for Inshore Coral Reefs. |
| title_full | Optimising Land-Sea Management for Inshore Coral Reefs. |
| title_fullStr | Optimising Land-Sea Management for Inshore Coral Reefs. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Optimising Land-Sea Management for Inshore Coral Reefs. |
| title_short | Optimising Land-Sea Management for Inshore Coral Reefs. |
| title_sort | optimising land sea management for inshore coral reefs |
| url | http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5072624?pdf=render |
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