Protecting Great Barrier Reef From Global Warming And Other Environmental Threats

Environmental Challenges Faced by the Great Barrier Reef

Discuss about the Great Barrier Reef Global Warming.

Great Barrier Reef Global Warming Samples – MyAssignmenthelp.comhas identified that there are major environmental challenges that the reef is facing with the course of time, therefore the government has taken some specific steps for protecting the reef for the future generations (Starck 2017). Studies have shown that major coral bleaching have taken place few times and the last recorded coral bleach has also lead to the loss of nearly about 85% of the entire reef due to several reasons such as air pollution, continuously changing climate in Australia, deforestation, land degradation, desertification, agricultural overgrazing and clearing, water pollution etc (Palaniswami, Rao and Bainbridge 2017). There have been alarming outcomes of past researches on the reef and the ecologists suggest that these results should be taken quite seriously. Researchers have also indicated that the changes in climate is the most significant threat for the Great Barrier Reef, therefore some even also indicated that only taking drastic actions towards reversing the global warming can preserve the coral reefs. Therefore this paper outlines the potential strategies for sustainable environmental development in the future along with highlighting the key points and focusing on the most significant environmental issue.

The most significant reason for the Coral bleaching at the Great Barrier Reef is global warming. The Australian government have already taking few steps towards it such as the Paris agreement which states that the country will try to reduce the harmful emissions by at least 50% per capita by the year 2030 (Emslie et al. 2015). Other than this the potential strategies that can be taken for preserving the reef are:

The researchers have indicated that if any Rapid Action is not taken for improving the quality of the water it is highly possible that the leaves will be lost in near future. The water is polluted heavily from the land due to the pesticides, fertilizers, sediments from agricultural, urban sources and land clearing, therefore major approaches should be taken for controlling the quality of water and preventing the pollution (Kennedy, Ordoñez and Diaz-Pulido 2018). However, the present strategies for controlling the urban expansion or agricultural pollution are not working that much. Therefore potential other Strategies for slashing the water pollution are:

The Australian government should increase the federal funding towards agriculture so that the farmers can opt for more sustainable practices which will eventually reduce the water pollution. The government should also ensure proper funding for projects like wetlands restoration and vegetation. Along with dress developing a system for monitoring and for the reporting the water quality can be helpful for preventing the water pollution. However this requires so appropriate funding as it will include scientific researches on ways for reducing pollution in the water quality (Clark et al. 2017). Other than that the tree clearing in Queensland also causes additional runoff pollution in the water. Therefore the government should make legal steps for protecting such important places as clearing trees we trigger the climate change and impact more on the Global Warming.

Role of Global Warming in Coral Bleaching

The government should immediately Ban all the offshore dumping and capital dredging which damages the port expansions. For example 20 million tonnes of dredging at Gladstone has been approved already. Such dumping has still been permitted without any hard limits of how much could be dumped at the offshore. The data have shown approximately 1 million M3 of dredge spoil tend to be dumped in the water each year (Brodie et al. 2017). Therefore and the Australian government should make sure that the maintenance grade spoil is disposed on Shaw in a safe way so that it does not spoil the water anymore.

This is a major step towards preventing the global warming and it will lead to a major reduction in terms of harmful emissions. Scientists indicate that there have been major influences of human on the earth climate and due to such full carbon emissions and harmful energy usage has led the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide or greenhouse gases increasing by 100 times for each million (Hughes, Day and Brodie 2015). Careful focusing on using more renewable energy can save the ecosystem inevitably.

The government and concerned authorities should emphasize on stopping illegal fishing by employing educational campaigns regarding the illegal and legal places for fishing. This is significant critically not just due to the commercial fishes but also the recreational ones as removing the predatory fishes by both recreational and commercial fishes has a massive influence on the ecosystem of the reef (Graham et al. 2015).

Conclusion:

From the above discussion, it can be said that the most significant reason for the Coral bleaching at the Great Barrier Reef is global warming and the change of climate. The researchers state that preventing serial bleaching can the only possible by preventing the Global Warming. Curbing illegal fishing maybe a small step towards the prevention but it will not work in the long-term rather preventing global warming production of water pollution and moving towards renewable and sustainable energy usage can save the heat induced Coral bleaching at the Great Barrier Reef (Wolff et al. 2018). The new researches have indicated that there should be argent moves for cutting the global warming as nothing else can be more effective for protecting the corals from the mass bleaching in the forthcoming time. It should be noted that the corals bleach only if the water temperature persist hire for around the week or more the polyps tend to reject their plant partners therefore the corals turned as bleached however if the temperature tends to be higher for long time the Coral can die as well. Therefore on the scientist suggests that the rising temperature causes is mostly due to global warming their full it may be only a matter of time before more such bleaching events occur. The studies has also focused on the lack of pragmatic sense of the Queensland and Australian government for supporting the largest coal mines which is supposed to export the call through the reef waters. This can increase the dredging along with the Marine traffic however at this stage the Great Barrier Reef cannot be able to afford these. Across countries numbers of coral reefs have turned into white solid graveyards due to the rise in the ocean temperature which causes mostly due to the increasing greenhouse gases with an atmosphere (Clark et al. 2016). The water temperature tends to stress the coral and forces them in expelling the colourful algae inside them. Therefore it can be said that in order to save the coral reefs building a sustainable future can be a major solution. In order to do that, the Australian government should take immediate steps towards building a clean power plan with strict standards and rules for reducing carbon emission from power plants along with building more support for climate policies both nationally and globally. Also opting for more renewable energy can be helpful for preventing global warming along with preventing the Great Barrier Reef from decaying.

References

Brodie, J.E., Lewis, S.E., Collier, C.J., Wooldridge, S., Bainbridge, Z.T., Waterhouse, J., Rasheed, M.A., Honchin, C., Holmes, G. and Fabricius, K., 2017. Setting ecologically relevant targets for river pollutant loads to meet marine water quality requirements for the Great Barrier Reef, Australia: A preliminary methodology and analysis. Ocean & Coastal Management, 143, pp.136-147.

Clark, T.R., Leonard, N.D., Zhao, J.X., Brodie, J., McCook, L.J., Wachenfeld, D.R., Nguyen, A.D., Markham, H.L. and Pandolfi, J.M., 2016. Historical photographs revisited: A case study for dating and characterizing recent loss of coral cover on the inshore Great Barrier Reef. Scientific reports, 6, p.19285.

Clark, T.R., Roff, G., Zhao, J.X., Feng, Y.X., Done, T.J., McCook, L.J. and Pandolfi, J.M., 2017. U-Th dating reveals regional-scale decline of branching Acropora corals on the Great Barrier Reef over the past century. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(39), pp.10350-10355.

Emslie, M.J., Logan, M., Williamson, D.H., Ayling, A.M., MacNeil, M.A., Ceccarelli, D., Cheal, A.J., Evans, R.D., Johns, K.A., Jonker, M.J. and Miller, I.R., 2015. Expectations and outcomes of reserve network performance following re-zoning of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Current Biology, 25(8), pp.983-992.

Graham, N.A., Jennings, S., MacNeil, M.A., Mouillot, D. and Wilson, S.K., 2015. Predicting climate-driven regime shifts versus rebound potential in coral reefs. Nature, 518(7537), pp.94-97.

Hughes, T.P., Day, J.C. and Brodie, J., 2015. Securing the future of the Great Barrier Reef. Nature Climate Change, 5(6), p.508.

Kennedy, E.V., Ordoñez, A. and Diaz-Pulido, G., 2018. Coral bleaching in the southern inshore Great Barrier Reef: a case study from the Keppel Islands. Marine and Freshwater Research, 69(1), pp.191-197.

Palaniswami, M., Rao, A.S. and Bainbridge, S., 2017. REAL-TIME MONITORING OF THE GREAT BARRIER REEF USING INTERNET OF THINGS WITH BIG DATA ANALYTICS.

Starck, W., 2017. The Great Barrier Reef is dying?… Again?. News Weekly, (2998), p.12.

Wolff, N.H., Mumby, P.J., Devlin, M. and Anthony, K.R., 2018. Vulnerability of the Great Barrier Reef to climate change and local pressures. Global change biology.