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NOAA Projects

Coral Reef Restoration Demonstration Project

NOAA will be funding a demonstration project to evaluate the success of various techniques to restore coral reefs in Vieques.  A request for proposals was issued in Summer of 2006 and a contract was awarded to Dial Cordy.  The outcome of the demonstration project may be used to support restoration efforts both of coral reefs damaged by past military activities and in areas where future activities involving the removal of unexploded ordnance may result in damage to coral reefs.  Plans are currently underway to construct the artificial reef structures and to deploy them in late June/July 2007. The structures will then be monitored on a quarterly basis over a period of two years.

The goals are to test various materials and artificial reef structural designs to determine whether certain materials and forms are preferable to others in terms of the success of coral settlement and growth and the survival of corals transplanted to these structures, and to determine which structural forms are preferable in terms of habitat for other benthic and mobile reef organisms.  The objectives of this project are to:

1. Compare different materials such as cement, ceramic, and coral rock to examine differences between coral settlement and growth and coral transplant survival;
2. Compare different artificial reef structures with varying shapes and forms to determine the influence of structure on coral settlement, growth, and transplant success, settlement and growth of other sessile marine organisms, and use by mobile reef organisms; and
3. Produce a report containing findings and recommendations regarding the use of artificial structures to rebuild damaged coral reefs in terms of both materials and forms.

Populations of staghorn (Acropora cervicornis) and elkhorn (A. palmata) corals are present in some of the areas where in-water clean up activities are expected to occur.  The NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service recently listed these two species as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.  These two species are mass spawners whose major spawning event usually occurs in August each year. These species also commonly reproduce asexually and form new colonies when broken.  Thus, as part of this project, NOAA hopes to obtain information regarding settlement and transplant success of these two species on artificial structures in order to determine whether potential impacts from cleanup activities can be mitigated for these two threatened species using artificial reef structures in areas where spawning populations and sources of transplants of these species are present.