page_title: Environmental issues with coral reefs
section_title: Marine pollution
hierarchical_section_title: Environmental issues with coral reefs / Issues / Marine pollution
caption_attribution_description: English: Land-based sources of pollution threats to coral reefs. As human population and development expands in coastal areas, the landscape is altered, increasing land-based sources of pollution and threatening coral reef health.
context_page_description: Human impact on coral reefs is significant. Coral reefs are dying around the world. Damaging activities include coral mining, pollution, overfishing, blast fishing, the digging of canals and access into islands and bays. Other dangers include disease, destructive fishing practices and warming oceans. Factors that affect coral reefs include the ocean's role as a carbon dioxide sink, atmospheric changes, ultraviolet light, ocean acidification, viruses, impacts of dust storms carrying agents to far-flung reefs, pollutants, algal blooms and others. Reefs are threatened well beyond coastal areas. Climate change, such as warming temperatures, causes coral bleaching, which if severe kills the coral.
  In 2008, a worldwide study estimated that 19% of the existing area of coral reefs has already been lost, and that a further 17% is likely to be lost over the subsequent 10–20 years. Only 46% of the world's reefs could be currently regarded as in good health and about 60% of the world's reefs may be at risk due to destructive, human-related activities. The threat to the health of reefs is particularly strong in Southeast Asia, where 80% of reefs are endangered.
context_section_description: Reefs in close proximity to human populations are subject to poor water quality from land- and marine-based sources. In 2006 studies suggested that approximately 80 percent of ocean pollution originates from activities on land. Pollution arrives from land via runoff, the wind and "injection" (deliberate introduction, e.g., drainpipes).
  Runoff brings with it sediment from erosion and land-clearing, nutrients and pesticides from agriculture, wastewater, industrial effluent and miscellaneous material such as petroleum residue and trash that storms wash away. Some pollutants consume oxygen and lead to eutrophication, killing coral and other reef inhabitants.
  An increasing fraction of the global population lives in coastal areas. Without appropriate precautions, development (e.g., buildings and paved roads) increases the fraction of rainfall and other water sources that enter the ocean as runoff by decreasing the land's ability to absorb it.
  Pollution can introduce pathogens. For example, Aspergillus sydowii has been associated with a disease in sea fans, and Serratia marcescens, has been linked to the coral disease white pox.
  Reefs in close proximity to human populations can be faced with local stresses, including poor water quality from land-based sources of pollution. Copper, a common industrial pollutant has been shown to interfere with the life history and development of coral polyps.
  In addition to runoff, wind blows material into the ocean. This material may be local or from other regions. For example, dust from the Sahara moves to the Caribbean and Florida. Dust also blows from the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts across Korea, Japan, and the Northern Pacific to the Hawaiian Islands. Since 1970, dust deposits have grown due to drought periods in Africa. Dust transport to the Caribbean and Florida varies from year to year with greater flux during positive phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation. The USGS links dust events to reduced health of coral reefs across the Caribbean and Florida, primarily since the 1970s. Dust from the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia appeared in the annular bands of the reef-building coral Montastraea annularis from the Florida Reeftract.
  Sediment smothers corals and interferes with their ability to feed and reproduce. Pesticides can interfere with coral reproduction and growth. There are studies that present evidence that chemicals in sunscreens contribute to coral bleaching by lowering the resistance of zooxanthellae to viruses, though these studies showed significant flaws in methodology and did not attempt to replicate the complex environment found in coral reefs.
caption: Land-based sources of pollution threats to coral reefs  – NOAA[17]
exif: {}