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Impact From SCUBA Diving

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Impact from SCUBA Diving

Researchers have concluded recreation divers cause significant deterioration to coral reef.24-26 However some major diving companies such as BSAC still deny that SCUBA divers are damaging to the environment (Louise Whitehouse, personal communication, January 28, 2015) and some SCUBA divers do not think diving causes ecological damage.27 There is no denying that SCUBA divers damage coral reef to some extent, some will kick it or bump into it, therefore the question is whether they cause significant damage. Damage will usually be minor but there is evidence that the cumulative effects can cause more serious declines in coral health.24,28,29 SCUBA diving is constantly increasing in interest, the equipment is becoming …show more content…

Broken and abraded coral has been clearly injured and or killed. However this abraded coral is less resistant to diseases and will have slower reproduction and growth due to redirected energy.24 Originally studies focused on coral breakages, however more recent studies have found that just the re-suspension of sediment can affect the health of reef. The removal of sediment from the coral surface results in the redirection of energy and makes the coral more vulnerable to disease.33 The study of this is more difficult and less reliable as weather has a huge impact on sediment suspension. Observations by Barker and Roberts accounted for sediment re-suspension, but the extent of damage caused to the coral was not …show more content…

For instance Luna et al. found that inexperienced divers, those with less than 100 dives were more likely to cause damage to the reef.27 However they only used a 10-minute observation period to observe more divers, the monitoring of divers started 10 minutes after the entry into the water, after equipment had been adjusted. This a relatively short observation period, and the first 10 minutes of a dive is when damage is most likely to occur.1 Out of the 181 divers observed 96.7% made at least one contact with the seabed, however due to the short observation window it is possible that 100% of the divers made contact. Diver qualification had no significant affect on the amount of contact made, however those that had completed more dives made significantly fewer contacts. Other studies such as Harriott et al. found no such correlations.34 However Harriott et al. only separated experienced and non-experienced divers into two groups, those with less than 100 dives and those with over 100 dives.34 However the maximum number of dives was over 1000, so this does not seem to be a fair distribution. Also this only looks at the number of contacts made by the diver and does not look at the type of contact; it does not look at the significance of the damage caused by divers. Barker and Roberts also found that dive qualification level did not vary with

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