video: Around the world, climate change is triggering more frequent and severe coral bleaching events, which kill coral. Global emissions reduction remains the most important action to minimise the impact of climate change on the Great Barrier Reef. However, with average global temperatures already 1°C above pre-industrial levels, emissions reduction is no longer enough to guarantee survival of the Great Barrier Reef as we know it. Modelling shows that even in the best-case scenario of carbon emissions reduction, water temperatures will continue to increase until 2050, outpacing corals' capacity to naturally adapt. In addition to best-practice reef management, and global action to reduce carbon emissions, bold action is urgently needed to help protect the Great Barrier Reef. Successful intervention is possible and could double the likelihood of sustaining the Reef in good condition by 2050, according to the world's most rigorous and comprehensive investigation into medium- and large-scale reef intervention. The Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program (RRAP) Concept Feasibility Study was conducted by a partnership of leading Australian experts including scientists, engineers, modellers and economists. RRAP is now embarking on a long-term research and development (R&D) program to rigorously develop, test and risk-assess novel interventions to help keep the Reef resilient and sustain critical functions and values. This ambitious undertaking will require not only our best minds working in partnership across many organisations and fields of expertise, but importantly, the input and support of Traditional Owners, reef communities and industries and the wider Australian public. The aim is to provide reef managers and decision-makers with an innovative toolkit of safe, acceptable, cost-effective interventions to help protect the Great Barrier Reef from the impacts of climate change. The toolkit would allow for an integrated three-point approach to helping protect the Reef: o cooling and shading to help protect the Reef from the impacts of climate change o assisting reef coral species to evolve and adapt to the changing environment, to minimise the need for ongoing intervention o supporting natural restoration of damaged and degraded reefs. The interventions would be implemented at an effective scale if, when and where it was decided action was needed. The RRAP R&D Program aims to achieve the best outcomes under a wide range of possible climate change scenarios. A 1:40 animation For more information: www.GBRrestoration.org view more
Credit: Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program
Effective solutions to the climate challenge threatening the world's coral reefs require complex decisions about risk and uncertainty, timing, quality versus quantity as well as which species to support for the most robust and productive future, according to a science paper released today.
Interventions to help coral reefs under global change - a complex decision challenge, by a group of key scientists from Australia's Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program (RRAP), was today published in PLOS ONE.
The paper warns that while best-practice conventional management is essential, it is unlikely to be enough to sustain coral reefs under continued climate change. Nor is reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, on its own, sufficient any longer.
Lead author - marine biologist and decision scientist Dr Ken Anthony, of the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) - said that even with strong action to reduce carbon emissions, global temperatures could stay elevated for decades.
"Coordinated, novel interventions will most likely be needed - combined with best-practice conventional reef management and reduced carbon emissions - to help the Reef become resilient in the face of climate change," he said.
"Developing new technologies for environmental management and conservation carries some risks but delaying action represents a lost opportunity to sustain the Reef in the best condition possible."
Such interventions include local and regional cooling and shading technologies such as brightening clouds to reflect sunlight and shade the reef, assisting the natural evolution of corals to increase their resilience to the changing environment, and measures to support and enhance the natural recovery of damaged reefs.
The paper draws parallels between the risk assessment of coral reef interventions and driverless cars and new drugs. It outlines the prioritisation challenges and the trade-offs that need to be weighed.
"For example, should we aim to sustain minimal coral cover over a very large area of the reef or moderate coral cover over a smaller area?" he said.
"While the net result of coral area sustained may be the same, it could produce very different ecological outcomes and values for industries like tourism.
"Spreading efforts thinly could reduce the Reef's capacity to sustain critical ecological functions, while concentrating efforts on a selection of just a few reefs could sustain most of the Reef's tourism industry, which is spatially concentrated.
"But under severe climate change, preserving more coral cover in smaller areas could reduce the Great Barrier Reef to a fragmented (and therefore vulnerable) network of coral oases in an otherwise desolate seascape."
Dr Anthony said prioritising the coral species to be supported by adaptation and restoration measures added to the decision challenge for reef restoration and adaptation.
"Without significant climate mitigation, sensitive coral species will give way to naturally hardier ones, or to species that can adapt faster," he said.
"Picking who should be winners, and ultimately who will be losers under continued but uncertain climate change is perhaps the biggest challenge facing R&D programs tasked with developing reef rescue interventions."
Co-author and AIMS CEO Dr Paul Hardisty said how interventions were chosen and progressed for research and development would determine what options were available for reef managers and when.
"Ultimately, we need to consider what society wants, what can be achieved and what opportunities we have for action in a rapidly closing window," he said.
"It will require exceptional coordination of science, management and policy, and open engagement with the Traditional Owners and the general public. It will also require compromise, because reefs will change under climate change despite our best interventions."
RRAP is a partnership of organisations working together to create an innovative toolkit of safe, acceptable, large-scale interventions to helping the Reef resist, adapt to, and recover from the impacts of climate change.
In April, the Australian Government announced that an initial $150M would be invested in the RRAP R&D Program following endorsement of a two-year feasibility study. Of this, $100M is through the $443.3 million Great Barrier Reef Foundation - Reef Trust Partnership with a further $50M in research and scientific contributions from the program partners.
Dr Hardisty said RRAP aimed to research and develop new methods for management quickly and safely.
"We need to be expediently trialling promising interventions now, whatever emissions trajectory the world follows," he said.
"In this paper we offer a conceptual model to help reef managers frame decision problems and objectives, and to guide effective strategy choices in the face of complexity and uncertainty."
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Other authors include: Dr Line Bay, David Mead and Dr Britta Schaffelke from AIMS; Queensland University of Technology's Dr Kate Helmstedt and Professor Kerrie Wilson; University of Queensland's Dr Pedro Fidelman, Professor Karen Hussey, and Professor Peter Mumby; James Cook University's Dr Ian McLeod and Dr Maxine Newlands and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation's Dr Petra Lundgren.
For further information: Ken Anthony 0455 055 392 k.anthony@aims.gov.au or Danielle Koopman 0402 968 131 d.koopman@aims.gov.au
Upon publication, the article can be viewed here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0236399
1:40 animation - How can we help the Great Barrier Reef?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhStJAyv5jQ
Journal
PLoS ONE