Coral restoration can reduce impacts of sea-level rise
The paper’s authors, including Johan Reyns, IHE Delft Lecturer and Researcher in Coastal Morphodynamics, show that coral reef growth could combat the effects of low to moderate levels of sea-level rise expected by the end of the century. But for that to happen, urgent and aggressive coral reef restoration is needed.
Coastal communities in the Caribbean and elsewhere already suffer from the effects of climate change, and will face an increasingly difficult situation in the coming years due to climate change. Coral reefs, their coastlines have gradually been lost, and the reefs face difficulties in growing back and keeping pace with sea-level rise.
Studying the Buck Island Reef in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the authors found that restoring the Acropora palmata coral could allow enough reef growth to mitigate the most extreme impacts of coastal flooding.
“We show how restoring this coral, which is native to the Caribbean, can counterbalance the harm climate change has done and is doing to the reef, and allow the natural habitat to regain its equilibrium”
The paper provides guidance on how much restoration is needed to protect coastal areas, thereby supporting cost-benefit analyses for reef restoration investments.
The study “provides insight into how successful coral-reef restoration efforts initiated within the present decade could, in combination with larger-scale climate-change mitigation, reduce the impacts of sea-level rise and wave-driven water levels on coral-reef-lined coasts” such as the Buck Island Reef, the paper states.
The study described in the paper was led by the U.S. Geological Survey.