Abstract
Although the rapidly expanding tourism industry is considered an extremely important economic activity, it caused increasing pressure on coral reefs of Egypt. Damage occurs from both direct and indirect impacts of tourism activities on coral communities. The Gulf of Suez has increasing of resorts from 8 at 2000 to 31 at 2014. This affected the coral communities along the area of study leads to a decrease in coral areas from 960 m2 at 2000 to 750 m2 at 2014, number of coral species from 21 species at 2000 to only 14 species at 2014, percentage cover of life coral from 46.4% at 2000 to 10.6% at 2014; on contrary, dead coral increased from 23.8% to 47.9% at the same period. This accompanied with an increase in the percentage of the algal cover from 8.6% at 2000 to 19.4% at 2014. The statistical analysis revealed a high correlation between the increased tourism activities and the coral status variables measured during the study. The data obtained showed high significant positive and negative correlation between the different variables that determined according to the effect of the different variables on each other and the relation between them. The simple linear regression statistical analyses showed a significant effect of tourism activities on the coral status, the analyses indicated that each increase in number of resorts by one resort leads to significant decrease in total coral area at the site by 0.9%, the analysis also showed that 80% of that decrease referred to the effect of tourism activities and 20% referred to other reasons. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) divided the recoded coral species into three categories, the first is soft corals which recorded significant increase in percentage cover from 2000 to 2014, the second is three species that recorded insignificant difference during the period of study, while the third category include most of the recorded species and they showed significant decrease in their percentage cover along time of study. The data obtained illustrated that all the investigated coral parameters are affected by the increasing tourism activities.
Highlights
Coral reefs are productive and diverse ecosystems characterized by a huge biodiversity and a high level of endemism as found at the Red Sea [1]
The Gulf of Suez has increasing of resorts from 8 at 2000 to 31 at 2014. This affected the coral communities along the area of study leads to a decrease in coral areas from 960 m2 at 2000 to 750 m2 at 2014, number of coral species from 21 species at 2000 to only 14 species at 2014, percentage cover of life coral from 46.4% at 2000 to 10.6% at 2014; on contrary, dead coral increased from 23.8% to 47.9% at the same period
The simple linear regression statistical analyses showed a significant effect of tourism activities on the coral status, the analyses indicated that each increase in number of resorts by one resort leads to significant decrease in total coral area at the site by 0.9%, the analysis showed that 80% of that decrease referred to the effect of tourism activities and 20% referred to other reasons
Summary
Coral reefs are productive and diverse ecosystems characterized by a huge biodiversity and a high level of endemism as found at the Red Sea [1]. The high productivity of coral ecosystems are well known even they are surrounded by water poor in nutrients necessary for primary production [2]. As it is a very productive ecosystem, it provided food and subsequently shelter for a large number of individuals and species leading to a complex interaction inside the ecosystem [3], led to a sensitive ecosystem affected by any minor change which could cause a degradation of the overall ecosystem. Coral reefs are important source of economy whether they are used directly or indirectly or even from non use value [4] Despite this natural wealth and socio-economic advantages, many threats are posing stress on coral reefs. If current degradation continues unabated, more than half of the world’s coral reefs may be destroyed during the 30 years [7]
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