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Wooldridge, S. A., Done, T. J., Thomas, C. R., Gordon, I. I., Marshall, P. A., & Jones, R. N. (2012). Safeguarding coastal coral communities on the central Great Barrier Reef (Australia) against climate change: realizable local and global actions. Climatic change, 112(3-4), 945-961.
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Australia
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Rising sea water temperatures will lead to the rapid decline of coral reefs due to bleaching. Anthropogenic pressures are shown to greatly affect coral tolerance and recovery from climate pressures (e.g. sedimentation, nutrient enrichment, overfishing). Reducing coral exposure to dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) from terrestrial runoff can raise the thermal tolerance of coastal coral communities in the central Great Barrier Reef. Modelling simulations highlight that an 80% reduction in DIN 'buys' an additional ~50-60 years of reef-building capacity for No Mitigation ('business-as-usual') bleaching projections. Moreover, the integrated management benefits provided by: (i) local reductions of ~50% in DIN contained in river loads, and (ii) global stabilisation of atmospheric CO2 below 450 ppm can help ensure the persistence of hard-coral-dominated reefscapes beyond 2100.
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Beyond the global imperative to mitigate future atmospheric CO2 emissions there still remains the need for effective local management actions that enhance the resistance and resilience of coral reef communities to the impacts of climate change
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