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Recreational Diver Behavior and Contacts with Benthic Organisms in the Abrolhos National Marine Park, Brazil

Environmental Management volume 57, pages 637–648 (2016)Cite this article

Abstract

In the last two decades, coral reefs have become popular among recreational divers, especially inside marine protected areas. However, the impact caused by divers on benthic organisms may be contributing to the degradation of coral reefs. We analyzed the behavior of 142 scuba divers in the Abrolhos National Marine Park, Brazil. We tested the effect of diver profile, reef type, use of additional equipment, timing, and group size on diver behavior and their contacts with benthic organisms. Eighty-eight percent of divers contacted benthic organism at least once, with an average of eight touches and one damage per dive. No significant differences in contacts were verified among gender, group size, or experience level. Artificial reef received a higher rate of contact than pinnacle and fringe reefs. Specialist photographers and sidemount users had the highest rates, while non-users of additional equipment and mini camera users had the lowest contact rates. The majority of contacts were incidental and the highest rates occurred in the beginning of a dive. Our findings highlight the need of management actions, such as the provision of pre-dive briefing including ecological aspects of corals and beginning dives over sand bottoms or places with low coral abundance. Gathering data on diver behavior provides managers with information that can be used for tourism management.

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Acknowledgments

We thank dive shops Horizonte Aberto, Apecatu Expedições, and Parú Divers for the support; dive guides V. Albanez, M. Lana, J. Andrade, M. Affonso, T. Ramon, T. Bonelli, R. Santoro, D. Cajueiro, M. Kipgem, and E. Said. J. Adelir-Alves for support in data collection; Abrolhos National Marine Park (through R. Jerozolimski) for research permission and support; and C. Sampaio, C. Cassano, and W. Goodell for suggestions on manuscript. The first author was supported by the Brazilian Ministry of Education (CAPES) and AS was supported by Ministry of Science and Technology (CNPq).

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  1. Vinicius J. Giglio

    Present address: Programa de Pós-graduação em Ecologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Programa de Pós-graduação em Ecologia e Conservação da Biodiversidade, Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz, Ilhéus, Brazil

    Vinicius J. Giglio

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, 2109, NSW, Australia

    Osmar J. Luiz

  3. Departamento de Ciências Agrárias e Ambientais, Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz, Ilhéus, Brazil

    Alexandre Schiavetti

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  1. Vinicius J. Giglio
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  3. Alexandre Schiavetti
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Correspondence to Vinicius J. Giglio.

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Giglio, V.J., Luiz, O.J. & Schiavetti, A. Recreational Diver Behavior and Contacts with Benthic Organisms in the Abrolhos National Marine Park, Brazil. Environmental Management 57, 637–648 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-015-0628-4

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Keywords

  • Dive tourism
  • Marine protected area
  • Management
  • Scuba divers
  • South Atlantic
  • Tourism management