Dinsdale, Elizabeth (2004) Coral reef health indicators: integrating ecological and perceptual assessments of anchor damage. PhD thesis,

The ecosystem health concept is an integrative approach to environmental management and while conceptually logical, it is difficult to implement. The false dichotomy of nature and culture, and the way in which knowledge is constructed has led to many of these problems. To understand the relationship between knowledge systems, the ecosystem health concept is explored here by assessing the condition of coral reefs associated with different intensities of anchoring, using both an ecological and a social perspective. Specifically, the research aims to: 1) identify environmental indicators to evaluate management strategies; 2) identify perceptual meanings ascribed to coral reefs; 3) evaluate the relationship between perceptual meanings, health judgments and environmental indicators; and 4) use the ecosystem health indicators developed to assess a coral reef management strategy. Because environmental conservation can alienate scarce natural resources from competing uses, it is important to gain support for conservation programs by demonstrating that management actions have been effective in achieving their goals. One way to do this is to show that selected significant environmental variables (indicators) vary between managed and unmanaged areas, or change over time following implementation of a management regime. However, identifying indicators that reflect environmental conditions relevant to management practices has proven difficult. Initially this thesis focuses on developing a framework for choosing indicators in a coral reef habitat. To identify indicators suitable to measure the success of a management strategy to reduce anchor damage to a coral reef, twenty-four candidate variables were identified and evaluated at sites with different intensities of anchoring. In this study, measures which reflected injuries to coral colonies were generally more efficient than traditional measures of coral cover in describing the effects of anchoring. The number of overturned colonies was identified as the single most useful indicator of coral reef condition associated with anchoring intensities. The indicator selection framework developed has the advantages of being transparent, cost efficient, and is readily transferable to other types of human activities and management strategies.