COASTAL RESEARCH Restoring the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Bay Coral Reefs

Reef health monitoring and assessments are integral and imperative components of ecosystem management in order to save the critical coral habitat. A comprehensive reef health status of scleractinian corals in Gulf of Mannar and Palk Bay with a documentation of 79 reef building coral species, belonging to 13 families and 22 genera have been undertaken by the National Centre for Coastal Research. The average live coral cover showed significant increase despite natural and anthropogenic disturbances in the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Bay. Corals have been restored by local transplantation technique in degraded reefs of this region with 56.0 per cent survival rate and a growth rate of 1.12-1.20 cm per month.

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