The study recommends targeting investment in conservation projects that have the “strongest potential to succeed” in protecting priority reefs.
Prof.
Hawthorne Beyer, a fellow at the University of Queensland researching the use of quantitative modelling in managing environmental systems, said: “Talk to people in the business world and they get it immediately.
They used 174 metrics, in five categories, including temperature history and projections, ocean acidification, invasive species, cyclone activity and connectivity to other reefs, for each one.
They include parts of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the Egyptian and southern Red Sea, and parts of the “coral triangle” around Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines.
Nearly $93 million has been invested in the project, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Vibrant Oceans initiative and others.
Coral reefs cover just 0.2 per cent of the ocean floor but are home to at least a quarter of all marine species and support hundreds of millions of people.
“We are looking at non-climate threats such as overexploitation, destructive fishing, unsustainable tourism, coastal development, water pollution.