Coral Reef Ecosystem Health
An assessment of the health of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage
Area requires an understanding of how the Great Barrier Reef changes over
time, and whether those changes are related to human impacts.
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Manta tow
Photo: GBRMPA |
Information on status and natural variability of populations is essential
for informed management of such an extensive area. The AIMS Long-Term
Monitoring program, supported by CRC Reef, is designed to provide information
on population trends in key groups of organisms (particularly crown-of-thorns
starfish, corals, algae and reef fishes) on appropriate spatial scales
over the length and breadth of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
The Long-Term Monitoring Program began in 1992, following a previous
program of short-term monitoring that had been established in 1985 in
response to outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish. The survey team
has collected data using manta tows on about 100 reefs from 11 latitudinal
sections since 1985. More intensive surveys have been carried out on six
reef sectors since 1993.
The Long-Term Monitoring Program represents the first concerted attempt
to assess a range of ecological variables across most of the Great Barrier
Reef. The objective of coral reef monitoring for ecosystem health is to
detect change. Coral reefs are always changing through natural processes
such as recruitment, growth, mortality and disturbance by storms. The
Long-Term Monitoring Program documents changes in the Great Barrier Reef
(GBR), and contributes to reporting on the status of the GBR World Heritage
Area, as required by the World Heritage Commission. Monitoring of the
status of the reef allows natural resource managers to place small changes
at a specific site within the context of changes that are observed over
broader spatial and temporal scales.
The specific objectives of the program are to monitor the status and
changes in the distribution and abundance of reef biota on a large scale;
and to provide environmental managers with a context for assessing the
impact of human activities on the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, so that
it can be managed sustainably.
The program addresses long-term regional changes in coral and other benthos,
reef fishes and crown-of-thorns starfish. In recent years, the program
has proven invaluable in allowing assessment of large-scale changes caused
by coral bleaching in 1998 and outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish
since 1994.
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