Reef walking on Red Sea reef flats – Quantifying impacts and identifying motives
2008
Reefwalking on the shallow
reefflats of
fringing reefsis an activity commonly observed on Red Sea
coral
reefs. Of the 137 in-water observations of
reefwalkers made at Ras Um
Sidd, Sharm El Sheikh, South Sinai, 12.4% caused
coraldamage. Eighteen incidents of
coraldamage were recorded, 44.4% being breakages of
branching corals, 39.8% abrasions of various growth forms and 16.7% detachments of soft
coralcolonies. Sediment was stirred-up on 31.4% of observations. Tramplers broke 0.1 branches per minute and raised 1.5 sediment clouds, thereby causing more damage than reported from divers. Damage caused depended on
coralcommunity structure and past
tramplinghistory, with communities dominated by fragile
branching coralsbeing most susceptible to mechanical damage and communities heavily
trampledin the past being less susceptible. Given that main motives for
reefwalking included crossing the
reefflat, adjusting gear or
communicating,
managementinterventions, such as the construction of a walkway combined with a public awareness campaign, could reduce the numbers of
reefwalkers by up to 39%.
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