EFFECTIVENESS OF ARTIFICIAL REEF IN INCREASING THE RESILIENCE OF CORAL REEF ECOSYSTEMS OVER CLIMATE VARIABILITY

Abstract

Some coral bleaching event related to climate variability (ENSO or IOD) lead to coral mortality resulted in ecosystem damage and decreased in ecosystem health.  Artificial reef is one of management efforts adopted by stakeholders to restore coral reef condition.  Successful artificial reef could extend coral coverage and provides a new habitat for several marine organisms and could divert anthropogenic pressure on natural coral ecosystems. The current research aims are to identify the impact of artificial reef installment on ecosystem and fisheries. Three indicators for ecosystem were determined, such as an increase in coral cover, biofouling organism and fish abundance and number of fish species.  The indicator to measure artificial impact on fisheries is fish production after installment.  Data collection were done during 2017 around Bali area, including the occurrence of coral bleaching, the number of artificial reef installed and the case of positive impact of artificial reef.  The list of indicator data was done, then the data were analyzed to measure any changes occurred after artificial reef installment.  Results show that artificial reef installment has a significant impact on increasing coral cover, fouling organism, fish abundance and species richness; however the effect of artificial reef installment could not directly quantify on fish production due to unavailability of monitoring data.