Coral Bleaching. (Paphayompittayakom School)

^{My Eco report  is  Coral Bleaching.}

          
            The Institute of Research and Development of  Marine Resources Coastal Sea and Mangrove, in Phuket reported that water temperature in the Andaman Sea gradually increases. Increasing in water temperature might increase coral bleaching events. For this reason, we decided to study and survey coral diversity, the percentage of dead/alive coral and the percent tage of coral bleaching at  Ngai Island, Cheuk Island located in Trang province on the Andaman Sea side (the west coast of the southern Thai peninsular) during 24-25 August  2010. The objectives of this study was to study the amount of coral covered in Ngai and Chuek Islands, the types of corals and the percentages of coral dead/ alive/ bleaching. This would help us gain a better understanding of our coral ecosystems and raising some awareness of climate changes to our community.  We took 50 coral photographs, classified the types of corals and the percentages of coral dead/ alive/ bleaching. We classified corals into 12 growth forms: ACB, ACE, ACS, ACD, ACT, CB, CE, CF, CM, CS CMR, CHL.
            
            We found that, Ngai Island had more ACE and  CB coral growth forms than Cheuk Island. The percent of  coral cover were similar between these two islands. Ngai Island had lower % coral bleaching but higher % coral death than Cheuk Island. We concluded that, Ngai Island (32.98 %) had higher % coral death than Chuek Island (14.43) This indicates that Ngai Island might have more tourist visits. This raises some concern about our coral ecosystem. We hope to conserve our coral Our government should take a strong support on coral conservation.

            This research is not completed. We plan to study more about the effect of temperature, freshwater, and human activities on coral bleaching.

Abbreviation of the coral.
       
ACB = Acropora Branching
 ACE = Acropora Encrusting
 ACS = Acropora Submassive
 ACD = Acropora  Digitate
ACT  =  Acropora  Tabular
CB    =  Branching Coral
CE    = Encrusting Coral
CF    = Foliose Coral
CM   = Massive Coral
CS    = Submassive Coral
CMR = Mushroom Coral
CHL   = Heliopora