A DECISION FRAMEWORK FOR
INTERVENTIONS TO INCREASE
THE PERSISTENCE AND
RESILIENCE OF CORAL REEFS
Committee on Interventions to Increase the Resilience of Coral Reefs
Ocean Studies Board
Board on Life Sciences
Division on Earth and Life Studies
A Consensus Study Report of
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, DC
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This activity was supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under Award Number WC133R17CQ0031 and the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization or agency that provided support for the project.
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-49184-6
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Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.17226/25424
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Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. A Decision Framework for Interventions to Increase the Persistence and Resilience of Coral Reefs. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: https://doi.org/10.17226/25424.
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COMMITTEE ON INTERVENTIONS TO INCREASE THE RESILIENCE OF CORAL REEFS
STEPHEN R. PALUMBI, Chair, Stanford University, California
KEN R. N. ANTHONY, Australian Institute of Marine Science, Queensland
ANDREW C. BAKER, University of Miami, Florida
MARISSA L. BASKETT, University of California, Davis
DEBASHISH BHATTACHARYA, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey
DAVID G. BOURNE, James Cook University and Australian Institute of Marine Science, Queensland
NANCY KNOWLTON, Smithsonian Institution (retired), Washington, District of Columbia
CHERYL A. LOGAN, California State University, Monterey Bay
KERRY A. NAISH, University of Washington, Seattle
ROBERT H. RICHMOND, University of Hawaii at Manoa
TYLER B. SMITH, University of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas
KATHERINE VON STACKELBERG, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Staff
EMILY TWIGG, Program Officer, Ocean Studies Board
ANDREA HODGSON, Program Officer, Board on Life Sciences
TRENT CUMMINGS, Senior Program Assistant, Ocean Studies Board
OCEAN STUDIES BOARD
LARRY A. MAYER, Chair, University of New Hampshire, Durham
CAROL ARNOSTI, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
KEVIN R. ARRIGO, Stanford University, California
THOMAS R. CHANCE, ASV Global, LLC (retired), Broussard, Louisiana
PATRICK HEIMBACH, The University of Texas at Austin
SUSAN E. HUMPHRIS, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts
NANCY KNOWLTON, Smithsonian Institution (retired), Washington, District of Columbia
ANTHONY MACDONALD, Monmouth University, West Long Branch, New Jersey
THOMAS MILLER, University of Maryland, Solomons
S. BRADLEY MORAN, University of Alaska Fairbanks
RUTH M. PERRY, Shell Exploration & Production Company, Houston, Texas
JAMES SANCHIRICO, University of California, Davis
MARK H. SPALDING, The Ocean Foundation, Washington, District of Columbia
RICHARD SPINRAD, Oregon State University, Corvallis
MARGARET SPRING, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, California
DOUGLAS WARTZOK, Florida International University, Miami
LISA D. WHITE, University of California, Berkeley, and San Francisco State University
ROBERT S. WINOKUR, Michigan Tech Research Institute, Silver Spring, Maryland
Staff
SUSAN ROBERTS, Director
STACEE KARRAS, Program Officer
EMILY TWIGG, Program Officer
TRENT CUMMINGS, Senior Program Assistant
SHELLY FREELAND, Finance Business Partner
BOARD ON LIFE SCIENCES
JAMES P. COLLINS, Chair, Arizona State University, Tempe
A. ALONSO AGUIRRE, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia
ENRIQUETA C. BOND, Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Marshall, Virginia
DOMINIQUE BROSSARD, University of Wisconsin–Madison
ROGER D. CONE, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
NANCY D. CONNELL, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, Baltimore, Maryland
SEAN M. DECATUR, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio
JOSEPH R. ECKER, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California
SCOTT V. EDWARDS, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
GERALD EPSTEIN, National Defense University, Washington, District of Columbia
ROBERT J. FULL, University of California, Berkeley
ELIZABETH HEITMAN, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas
MARY E. MAXON, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Emeryville, California
ROBERT NEWMAN, Independent Consultant, Washington, District of Columbia
STEPHEN J. O’BRIEN, Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
CLAIRE POMEROY, Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, New York, New York
MARY E. POWER, University of California, Berkeley
SUSAN RUNDELL SINGER, Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida
LANA SKIRBOLL, Sanofi, Baltimore, Maryland
DAVID R. WALT, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
Staff
FRANCES SHARPLES, Director
KATIE BOWMAN, Senior Program Officer
ANDREA HODGSON, Program Officer
JO HUSBANDS, Senior Scholar
KEEGAN SAWYER, Senior Program Officer
AUDREY THEVENON, Program Officer
JESSICA DE MOUY, Senior Program Assistant
KOSSANA YOUNG, Senior Program Assistant
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Acknowledgments
This report was greatly enhanced by discussions with participants at the committee’s meetings and workshops as part of this study. The committee would like to acknowledge, especially, the efforts of those who gave presentations at the committee’s final open meeting since production of the first report: John Carriger, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; William Fisher, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Hugh Possingham, The Nature Conservancy and University of Queensland; Michael Runge, U.S. Geological Survey; Elizabeth Shaver, The Nature Conservancy; and Mitchell Small, Carnegie Mellon University.
This Consensus Study Report was reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in making each published report as sound as possible and to ensure that it meets the institutional standards for quality, objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process.
We thank the following individuals for their review of this report:
Although the reviewers listed above provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the conclusions or recommendations of this report nor did they see the final draft before its release. The review of this report was overseen by David Karl, University of Hawaii at Manoa, and Holly Greening, CoastWise Partners. They were responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance with the standards of the National Academies and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content rests entirely with the authoring committee and the National Academies.
Preface
Ecosystems around the world face increasing stress from human populations, and this is just as true in the oceans as on land. Coral reefs in particular are damaged by a wide range of factors, including overfishing, sediment, pollution, and habitat destruction. Added to these local stresses are a new range of deleterious impacts from climate change, which increases ocean temperature, storm damage, ocean acidity, and sea level. Because coral reefs directly provide food, living area, storm protection, and tourism income to hundreds of millions of people, maintaining their stability in the face of local and climate stressors is a key goal for supporting human well-being around the world.
We are not powerless to slow the decay of coral ecosystems in the face of climate change. But any successful effort requires careful application of a range of management tools at a regional scale, which needs time, effort, and often international cooperation. The Committee on Interventions to Increase the Resilience of Coral Reefs was asked to review the state of research on methods that have been used, tested, or proposed to increase the resilience of coral reefs. In our first report, we described and summarized 23 different interventions in four broad categories. The interventions differ widely in readiness and none are ready to be used at a global scale. In all cases, use of any of these interventions demands simultaneous efforts to reduce local stressors and reduce the impact of global greenhouse gas emissions on the world’s climate.
To navigate the sets of management choices that these many interventions provide, the committee turned to current methods of making
complex management decisions when there are many possible avenues of action. In this report, we follow the best practices for decision analysis, emphasizing the need for community involvement and detailed modeling in goal setting and risk analysis. The committee strived to lay out a framework that includes a range of methods for evaluating interventions, while emphasizing the primary role of localized goals and preferences based on local environmental monitoring. The Caribbean is a notably stressed region, depauperate of corals and plagued by disease, and provided the committee with a key case study for directing the use of a decision framework.
The group that together accomplished this effort—from the members of the committee to many levels of National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine staff—dedicated themselves to a long journey through many different kinds of information and many different ways of thinking, from genomics to decision science. Throughout, it has been a pleasure to work with, and sometimes just sit back and watch, the dedicated action, attention to detail, commitment to deadlines, and creativity of this thoughtful group. A sense of common resolve—that the world we live in, especially the beautiful reefs that we love, needs a different kind of immediate help—has pervaded our efforts. Last, our National Academies staff leaders Emily Twigg and Andrea Hodgson could not have been more effective at facilitating the balance between the practical and the audacious, which is the pivot point on which efforts to sustain all of Earth’s ecosystems balances.
Stephen R. Palumbi, Chair
Committee on Interventions to Increase the Resilience of Coral Reefs
Contents
2 SELECTING INTERVENTIONS FOR DECISION ANALYSIS
Timeframe to Technical Readiness
Context Dependency of Interventions
Interdependence Among Interventions
3 BEST PRACTICES FOR DEVELOPING STRUCTURED DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS FOR CORAL INTERVENTIONS
Decision Support Context of Coral Interventions
A Structured, Adaptive Approach to Decision Making
Research on Fundamental Coral Reef Biology
Site-Specific Research and Assessment to Determine Whether Intervention Is Needed or Possible
Research to Improve Assessment of the Benefits, Efficacy, and Risks of Specific Interventions
Research to Inform Risk Assessments and Modeling
6 THE TROPICAL WESTERN ATLANTIC AND CARIBBEAN AS A CASE STUDY FOR CORAL INTERVENTIONS
Implications for Selecting and Modeling Interventions
Opportunities for Interventions