Australian Great Barrier Reef lost more than half its coral cover in last 27 years
The Australian Great Barrier Reef has lost more than half its coral cover in the past 27 years, a new study shows. Researchers analysed data on the condition of 217 individual reefs that make up the World Heritage Site.
The results show that coral cover declined from 28.0% to 13.8% between 1985 and 2012. They attribute the decline to storms, a coral-feeding starfish and bleaching linked to climate change. The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.
Glen De'ath from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) and colleagues determined that tropical cyclones - 34 in total since 1985 - were responsible for 48% of the damage, while outbreaks of the coral-feeding crown-of-thorns starfish accounted for 42%.
Two severe coral bleaching events in 1998 and 2002 due to ocean warming also had “major detrimental impacts” on the central and northern parts of the reef, the study found, putting the impact at 10%.
“This loss of over half of initial cover is of great concern, signifying habitat loss for the tens of thousands of species associated with tropical coral reefs,” the authors wrote in their study.
Co-author Hugh Sweatman said the findings, which were drawn from the world's largest ever reef monitoring project involving 2,258 separate surveys over 27 years, showed that coral could recover from such trauma.
“But recovery takes 10-20 years. At present, the intervals between the disturbances are generally too short for full recovery and that's causing the long-term losses,” Sweatman said.
John Gunn, head of AIMS, said it was difficult to stop the storms and bleaching but researchers could focus their short-term efforts on the crown-of-thorns starfish, which feasts on coral polyps and can devastate reef cover.
The study said improving water quality was key to controlling starfish outbreaks, with increased agricultural run-off such as fertiliser along the reef coast causing algal blooms that starfish larvae feed on.
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The toll of damage these people have inflicted never grows smaller.
It's funny you anglos think that any of us believe any such studies.
Do you believe Russian, Chinese or Arab studies on you? Why do you think you are different than them in using such studies for propaganda? You aren't.
1. Anglos are a minority in the U.S.
2. See one :)
Why don't you believe Russian, Chinese, and other rankings?
Why is it always the other side that has to prove (or unprove, that's how crazy you people are), things?
Like clyde 15 told me last week “if we brits accuse you of being a thief, you have to disprove you aren't” ... that is your worldview anglos.
Pretty underwhelming.
So lets see, back to topic:
1. British Forests? Completely hewn.
2. Falkland Island's Wolf (warrah?) Gone.
3. Tasmanian Tiger (thylacine?) Gone.
4. USA prairie ecosystem? Destroyed.
5. Arctic “penguin” (great alk) Gone.
6. Great barrier reef? Dissapearing.
Yes, anglos are so good at preserving the environment. Must be true because some posh anglo college says it is.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Water
Drinking water is normally potable, but a historical legacy of polluted waterways derives from, first, the proliferation of European livestock on the pampas, followed by the processing of hides and livestock, and then by heavy industry. The textbook case is Buenos Aires’s Riachuelo, in the working-class barrio of La Boca, which more closely resembles sludge than water; its bottom sediments, thanks to chemical runoff from factories here and in nearby Avellaneda, are an even greater toxic hazard.
Soil Conservation and Deforestation
Centuries of livestock impacts, both grazing and trampling, have caused serious erosion even in areas where there were never native forests, such as the pampas and the Patagonian steppes. Even today, some forested national parks—most notably Lanín and Los Glaciares—have been unable to eliminate grazing within their boundaries.
The hot-button forest issues, though, are in the northern subtropical forests. In Misiones Province, agricultural colonists and commercial tea and yerba mate plantations have cut over much of the selva misionera, a diverse, wildlife-rich rain forest that cannot easily reestablish itself when its natural recycling mechanisms are disturbed. In Jujuy and Salta Provinces, the yungas cloud forest on the edge of the Andes has already suffered deforestation from construction of a nearly pointless natural gas pipeline over the Andes to Chile, and from widespread clear-cutting to extract just a few prize timber species.
* * * *
Looks like Argentina isn't a shining exmaple to us all, tisk...
And besides... All of what you wrote applies only to countries that still have an ENVIRONMENT TO PROTECT!
You can't say any of that about the UK because there is nothing TO protect! Its all gone, the forests, the pristine grassland, the unpolluted flatland... NOTHING. All gone.
No one has ever answered to me that question. That's all I need to know.
@4 You don't have the intelligence to “believe” anything except the garbage put out by your “government”. But I may remind you of this!
@13 You're too thick to be bothered with. Typical argie centric! Never been beyond the outskirts of its hovels.
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