Abstract
Over 60% of the world’s reefs experience damage from local activities such as overfishing, coastal development, and watershed pollution. Land-based sources of pollution are a critical threat to coral reefs, and understanding “ridge-to-reef” changes is critically needed to improve management and coral survival in the Anthropocene. We review existing literature on spatial-ecological connections between land use and coral health, specifically examining vegetative, agricultural, urban, and other land-use types. In general, forested land use is positively related to metrics of coral condition, while anthropogenic land uses like urban development and agriculture drive a decline in coral cover, diversity, colony size, and structural complexity. However, land-use and land-cover impacts vary across time and space, and small portions of the landscape (e.g., discrete segments of unpaved roads, grazed and scalded hillsides) may have an outsized effect on reef pollution, presenting opportunities for targeted conservation. Some coral species show resilience under land-use and land-cover change, and the impact of land use on coral recovery from bleaching remains an active area of research. Finally, a spatial bibliography of existing literature reveals that most ridge-to-reef studies focus on a handful of regional hotspots, surface water, and watershed-scale dynamics; more research is needed to address groundwater connectivity and to compare land-use impacts across multiple regions and scales. Approaches from landscape ecology that assess spatial patterns of, and synergies between, interlocking land cover may assist conservation managers in designing more resilient reefscapes.
Highlights
Land-use planning is fundamental to coral protection in the Anthropocene
Conservation managers have delineated marine reserves based on static measures of site composition rather than the time-variant dynamics that define land-sea processes, such as animal migration
An added complication is that the cost-effectiveness of land conservation for marine protection varies by location: in one study, one unit of forest conservation was roughly 500 times more cost effective than an equal conservation area in a different, lower-impact watershed (Klein et al, 2012)
Summary
Land-use planning is fundamental to coral protection in the Anthropocene. Coral reefs downstream of land disturbance are often degraded by disease; low larval recruitment and survival; low rates of calcification and photosynthesis; and mortality from hypoxia, tissue degradation, and macroalgal competition (Fabricius, 2005; Weber et al, 2012; Amato et al, 2016). To date, no study has explicitly reviewed the state of current knowledge on the relationship between land use and coral condition To address this gap, we examine the major impacts of forest vegetation, agriculture, urban, and other land-use types on coral reefs. We examine the major impacts of forest vegetation, agriculture, urban, and other land-use types on coral reefs We define these land uses as follows:. We review each land-use type, and in turn, summarize existing literature on the relationship between land-use change and coral health. We included existing reviews on region-specific topics (e.g., sedimentation in the Great Barrier Reef), and case studies that examine the longterm effects of land use change on coral condition in places of interest, such as major cities and bays. Urban: The anthropogenic built environment: impervious urban cover, ports, residences, recreational development (e.g., golf courses), and wastewater infrastructure like septic tanks and sewage outfalls
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