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Practical Resilience Index for Coral Reef Assessment

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Abstract

Assessing coral reef resilience is an increasingly important component of coral reef management. Existing coral reef resilience assessments are not practical, especially for developing countries. South-east Asian countries have been using line-intercept-transect (LIT) in coral reef monitoring for a long time. The present study proposes an index for assessing coral reef resilience based on data collected from the LIT method. The resilience index formula was modified from an existing resilience index for soil communities developed by Orwin and Wardle. We used an ideal resilient coral reef community as a reference point for the index. The ideal coral reef was defined from data collected from 1992 to 2009. Six variables were statistically selected for the resilience indicators: coral functional group (CFG), coral habitat quality (CHQ), sand-silt cover (SSC), coral cover (COC), coral small-size number (CSN), and algae-other-fauna (AOF) cover. Maximum values of five variables were determined as the best state, while the maximum value of CSN was determined from 1240 data-sets of Indonesian reefs. The resilience index performed well in relation to changes in COC, AOF, and SSC variables. Managers can use this tool to compare coral reef resilience levels among locations and times. This index would be applicable for global coral reef resilience assessment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Math and Science Education, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, University of Mataram, Kota Mataram, 83125, Indonesia

    Imam Bachtiar

  2. Department of Magister Pendidikan IPA, Program Pascasarjana, University of Mataram, Kota Mataram, 83125, Indonesia

    Imam Bachtiar

  3. Research Center for Oceanography, Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Jakarta, 12710, Indonesia

    Suharsono

  4. Department of Aquatic Resources Management, Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Science, Bogor Agricultural University, West Java, 16680, Indonesia

    Ario Damar

  5. Department of Marine Science and Technology, Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Science, Bogor Agricultural University, West Java, 16680, Indonesia

    Neviaty P. Zamani

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  1. Imam Bachtiar
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  2. Suharsono
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  3. Ario Damar
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  4. Neviaty P. Zamani
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Correspondence to Imam Bachtiar.

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Bachtiar, I., Suharsono, Damar, A. et al. Practical Resilience Index for Coral Reef Assessment. Ocean Sci. J. 54, 117–127 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12601-019-0002-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12601-019-0002-1

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