Improving coral reef management decisions through computer modelling

Coral reefs and the people that depend on them are facing a multitude of global, regional and local problems including climate change, overfishing and dredging.  These problems are difficult to solve mainly because coral reefs are all interconnected.

The Modelling and Decision Support Working Group believes a real solution for problems faced by coral reefs must:

• Attack all problems simultaneously;
• Understand how local problems affect global problems and vice versa;
• Understand how social and economic problems affect biological and physical problems and vice versa;
• Explore the effects of different management strategies on all problems; and
• Allow managers to learn and adapt.

Modelling is an important management technology that allows decision makers and reef users to see the dynamics of the whole reef system – the biophysical and socio-economic parts.  

Through its work, the CRTR Modelling and Decision Support Working Group is creating an integrated scientific understanding of the way in which people interact with coral reefs.  

Specifically, the group’s research aims to develop modelling resources to enable reef managers to develop scenarios for their own areas, to better understand the links between local, regional and global processes and to access realistic scientific and economic data over the Internet.

Research Update

CRTR Program Modelling and Decision Support Working Group Research Update - October 2006 [download]

Key Achievements

The CRTR Program Modelling and Decision Support Working Group is building a series of relevant computer simulations of coral reefs to help managers make better decisions.   These simulations capture the way reefs work and specifically:

• How they grow under normal conditions;
• How they collapse in response to stresses and pressures; and
• How they interact with the human communities that use them.

These simulations will allow managers to look at reefs locally, regionally and globally so that the full effects of management decisions can become apparent.

To date the Modelling and Decision Support Working Group has built and tested the fundamental ‘engine’ to drive the simulations. One part of this engine captures the way coral reefs work – the biology and physics – while the other part captures the way people use reefs – the economics and physics.  The group is now working on simulations that managers themselves can drive and that work at local, regional and global scales.