Detecting sedimentation impacts to coral reefs resulting from dredging the Port of Miami, Florida USA

Abstract

The federal channel at Port of Miami, Florida, USA, was dredged between late 2013 and early 2015, to widen and deepen the channel. While the precise effects of the dredging on surrounding coral reefs are not well quantified, previously published remote sensing analyses, as well as agency and anecdotal reports suggest the most severe and largest area of sedimentation occurred on a coral reef feature referred to as the Inner Reef, particularly in the sector north of the channel. A regional warm-water mass bleaching event followed by a coral disease outbreak during this same time frame confounded the assessment of dredging-related impacts to coral reefs adjacent to the federal channel. Inwater field assessments conducted after the completion of dredging and a time series analysis of tagged corals photographed pre-, during, and post-dredging, are used to discern dredging-related sedimentation impacts for the Inner Reef north. Results indicate increased sediment accumulation, severe in certain times and places, and an associated biological response, including significantly greater proportion of live coral tissue loss, occurred within coral reef sites located closer to the channel. Dredging projects near valuable and sensitive habitats subject to local and global stressors require monitoring methods capable of discerning non-dredging related impacts and adaptive management to ensure predicted and unpredicted project-related impacts are quantified. Anticipated increasing frequency and intensity of warming stress also suggests that manageable-butunavoidable local stressors such as dredging should be partitioned from the warmest times of year.

Extinction risk and conservation of marine bony shorefishes of the Greater Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico

“…Large coastal construction projects (e.g. extensive dredge‐and‐fill projects, cruise ship, and other port infrastructure projects) impact these habitats via direct burial, removal, and short‐term or often cumulative long‐term sedimentation (Lindeman & Snyder, ; Miller et al, ).…”

Responding to Ecosystem Transformation: Resist, Accept, or Direct?

“…Acropora and Orbicella taxa mortality has largely driven coral cover losses, but overall coral richness has also decreased (Porter et al 2002;Lirman et al 2019). Coral losses are attributed to increasing ocean temperatures (Kuffner et al 2015), nutrient pollution (Vega Thurber et al 2014), sedimentation (Miller et al 2016) and overfishing, but the synergistic effects of extreme temperature-induced coral bleaching and diseases may be the major cause of coral declines, globally (Aronson and Precht 2006). As scleractinian corals decline, FRT reefs have shifted to an octocoral (i.e., soft corals, sea fans), and sponge-dominated community structure (Ruzicka et al 2013;Alevizon and Porter 2015).…”

Fisheries Volume 46 Number 1 January 2021

“…Acropora and Orbicella taxa mortality has largely driven coral cover losses, but overall coral richness has also decreased (Porter et al 2002 ;Lirman et al 2019 ). Coral losses are attributed to increasing ocean temperatures (Kuff ner et al 2015 ), nutrient pollution (Vega Thurber et al 2014 ), sedimentation (Miller et al 2016 ) and overfi shing, but the synergistic eff ects of extreme temperature-induced coral bleaching and diseases may be the major cause of coral declines, globally (Aronson and Precht 2006 ). As scleractinian corals decline, FRT reefs have shifted to an octocoral (i.e., soft corals, sea fans), and sponge-dominated community structure (Ruzicka et al 2013 ;Alevizon and Porter 2015 ).…”