seaturtle.org : MTN : ARCHIVES : Sign In

Year: 2001
Editor: Eric Wolanski Publisher: CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida, USA
ISBN: 0-8493-0833-X
Pages: 356 (hardback)
Price: $119.95
To order: <http://www.crcpress.com/>

The title is somewhat misleading, given as the book is a collection of papers on a number of processes, not all oceanographic, which in varying degrees of indirectness, have an impact on or links to coral reefs. Using the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) as a focus, the book fails significantly in its stated objective of providing a clear understanding to linkages among reefs and physical and biological processes. Certainly, in its attempt to “help decision-makers understand the linkages between land and water use practices and their impacts on coral reef processes” (p.1) the book falls short of its key aim either throughproviding overly complex arguments and little clarity for decision-makers, or through studies which are much more pure research-oriented than management-oriented.

“Will they [the chapters] be read and understood by those groups (the decision-makers)? I presume not” (Australia’s Commission for the Environment; p. 5) further supports arguments that the book would have benefited further by being written in a form which was more readily understood by the general public, and not directed at the scientific community.

In many cases it appears as if any links to the GBR were added as an afterthought to make the chapters appear to have a common link and make a book title such as the one provided plausible. While each chapter stands alone clearly as a professional and scholarly work, as a compilation they do not clearly indicate the links that make the collection of greater value than the sum of the individual chapters.

The figures, for the most part, should have either all been omitted, saving some 68 pages of print, or interspersed among the text as appropriate making it easier for the reader to refer to each in turn, and then only if they were published in a size suitable for understanding. In the vast majority of cases the resolution is insufficient to differentiate text and line types, making the majority of figures completely useless. While a CD Rom is provided for the reader to refer to the figures on a computer screen, it is doubtful the average person will sit down to read a hardback 365page text at a computer table, and refer back and forth regularly. I personally lost track of numerous arguments simply while having to boot up a computer to try to get a feeling of what the figures or animations were supposed to portray.

Among the chapters, some highlights are the following: Chapter 11 on connectivity among ecosystems should possibly have been Chapter 1, providing a backbone to subsequent chapters. I would recommend reading this chapter first. It explores interesting topics including the extent and reach of land-based influences, food chain links and larval dispersion.

Chapter 1 provides an interesting history of the development of the GBRMP and its management authority and institutions of research and higher learning, which promote the understanding of the GBR and its interrelated processes. Chapter 3, an in-depth account of the temporal changes in land-cover in the catchment areas fronting the GBRMP that indicates which land-use practices result in the greatest sediment and associated runoff, mentions that it is a complex issue but provides little direct solutions or answers for decision-makers. This is a theme repeated often among the chapters. Chapter 5 addresses small-scale water movement in mangroves. While thorough and particularly appropriate to the study of water flow within mangroves, the calculation of friction coefficients for flow around individual pneumatophores is likely of little use to the management or understanding of oceanographic processes on reefs. While the authors do explain how sediments settle and how salinity gradients prevent sediments from reaching offshore reefs, statements such as “The complex calculations of friction coefficients demonstrate that the flow through the mangrove forest is strongly controlled by the vegetation” or “A wake is apparent behind the roots” seem inappropriate for a mature audience, and I wonder if the results of such studies would have been better directed at the subsequent effects of sediments and over coral reefs, as the chapter provides hardly any reference to how any of the study relates to coral reefs.

Chapter 8 on modeling provides a complex model system for understanding interactions between natural disturbances and eutrophication and coral reef development, but the application is unlikely to be of practical value to managers and policy makers, being more apt to the scientific community. Similarly, Chapter 10 provides a modeling exercise, which highlights the impact of event-driven floods occurrences, which is unlikely to play a large role in understanding the overall impact of river plume dynamics in management and policy making.

Finally, Chapter 19 provides an overview of coral reef conservation in Indonesia, but does not relate in any way to oceanographic processes, and instead describes uses and approaches to conservation and the political climate. This chapter is particularly irrelevant, although newsworthy unto itself, to the objectives and scope of the book. Similarly, in chapter 20, which investigates reefs in the context of human use, the arguments are aimed less at oceanographic processes than human actions and impacts, the political climate in which the GBRMP finds itself, and what the future holds for the World Heritage site. However, under Conclusions, the Chapter does address inadequacies in present reef conservation, and suggests the future is bleak unless the true nature of the reef, the interconnectivity among ecosystems, and land-based activities are understood and this understanding used in management decisions.

Overall the book is a collection of good works, which are in one way or another related to coral reefs, and I feel that packed slightly differently would have been far more useful to managers than in its present form. For the scientific community however, the book contains a wealth of information on hydrodynamics and modeling, and should be a useful addition to libraries as reference material.