The primary goals of the Reefs at Risk in the Caribbean project are to raise awareness among coastal managers, governments and other relevant decision makers about threats to coral reefs and to make available a comprehensive, high quality base of information on the region’s coral reefs, as an aid to more effective decision making on their use and management. In collaboration with regional partners, WRI will implement an analysis linking human activities and reef condition. Key elements of the project include a watershed-based analysis of threats to coral reefs from land cover change and agricultural activities and an economic valuation of the key goods and services derived from coral reefs.

Problem Statement

Effective management of Caribbean reefs is hampered by the lack of relevant information on both the impacts of human activity as well as the value of the goods and services provided. The majority of the Caribbean’s coral reefs have not been surveyed or consistently monitored over time. In addition, much of the monitoring data has not been compiled or made publicly available. Although information from both scientific and volunteer surveys is increasing, this information is typically not well integrated with information on human activities that have the potential to contribute to the degradation of coral reefs. Development of an integrated data base of information is the first step toward being able to identify the causes of reef degradation. It will also inform decisions by business, NGO’s and governments on how reefs are used, managed and governed in order for them to continue to provide a range of valued goods and services.

Project Goals

To address this information need, Reefs at Risk in the Caribbean has five primary components:

• Collect and integrate information to improve the base of information available for examining threats to, status of, and protection of coral reefs within the wider Caribbean.
• Estimate (model) threats to coral reefs based on human population and development patterns. This will allow for extrapolation about threats to (and likely condition of) the many reefs for which survey information is not available.
• Develop a Geographic Information System (GIS) based tool, applicable at multiple scales, for evaluation of watershed-based sources of increased sediment and nutrient pollution to coastal waters.
• Estimate the economic value of ecosystems goods and services derived from healthy reefs and the diminished values likely from degraded reefs.
• Raise awareness among key decision makers and stakeholders through wide dissemination of integrated data sets, model results, a published report, and the GIS planning tool.

Resources

• Technical notes on threat analysis
• Technical notes on economic valuation
• Downloadable GIS Datasets

Financial Support

• The Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation
• The Henry Foundation
• Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA)
• United Nations Foundation (UNF)
• U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)