Ecological vulnerability assessment of coral islands and reefs in the South China Sea based on remote sensing and reanalysis data

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution

Ecology and Evolution

Yizhuang Liu¹  Yuannan Long¹  Changbo Jiang¹  Yongjie Wang¹  Ruixuan Wu¹  Xiaofeng Wen¹  Yuan Ma¹  Shanshan Li¹  Yuantai Kang¹  Shuai Yuan¹ 

[1] School of Hydraulic Engineering, Changsha University of Science & Technology, Changsha, China;Key Laboratory of Dongting Lake Aquatic Eco-Environmental Control and Restoration of Hunan Province, Changsha, China;

关键词: climate change;    coral reef vulnerability model;    re-analysis of data;    RS and GIS;    coral reef;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fevo.2023.1066961

 received in 2022-10-11, accepted in 2023-09-04,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Coral reefs are ecosystems that are highly vulnerable to external environmental impacts, including changes associated with ocean acidification and global warming. Assessing the vulnerability of coral reef growth environments over large areas of the sea is a difficult and complex process, as it is influenced by many variables. There are few studies on environmental vulnerability assessment of coral islands and reefs in the South China Sea. It is therefore particularly important to understand the environmental sensitivity of corals and how coral communities respond to changes in climate-related environmental variables. In this study, indicators were selected mainly from natural environmental factors that hinder the development of coral reefs. The sea surface temperature (SST), sea surface salinity (SSS), wind velocity (WV) and direction, sea level height (SL), ocean currents (OC), and chlorophyll concentration (Chl) of coral reefs in South China Sea Island were integrated to calculate the coral reef environmental vulnerability region. In a GIS environment, Spatial Principal Component Analysis (SPCA) was used to develop sensitivity models and evaluate the ecological vulnerability of coral reefs. Based on the Environmental vulnerability indicator (EVI) values, the study area was classified as 5 grades of ecological vulnerability: Potential (0.000–0.577), Light (0.577–0.780), Medium (0.780–0.886), Heavy (0.886–0.993) and Very Heavy (0.993–1.131). Sensitivity models identified regional gradients of environmental stress and found that some coral reefs in western Malaysia and southwestern Philippines have higher vulnerability. Meanwhile, the study found that the reefs of Paracel Islands and Macclesfield Bank areas of medium vulnerability. Future use of high-precision data from long time series will allow better estimates of site-specific vulnerability and allow for the precise establishment of marine protected areas so that the ecological diversity of coral reefs can be sustained.

【 授权许可】

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Copyright © 2023 Ma, Jiang, Li, Liu, Wen, Long, Yuan, Kang, Wang and Wu