A Reef Manager's Guide to Coral Bleaching

Abstract

The need for a management response to mass coral bleaching is now well established. The incidence and severity of mass coral bleaching events has increased continuously over the last two decades. As a result, almost every reef region in the world has now suffered extensive stress or coral mortality. Observations of these past impacts and studies of expected future trends have prompted leading researchers and managers to declare that coral reefs are in crisis. In keeping with this, the scientific community has suggested that the impacts of mass coral bleaching events, in combination with those from chronic local stressors, will largely determine the condition of coral reefs in the next 50 years.