Modelling & Decision Support Working Group    

Coral reefs and the people that depend on them are facing a multitude of global, regional and local problems including climate change, overfishing and dredging.  These problems are difficult to solve mainly because coral reefs are all interconnected.

The Modelling and Decision Support Working Group believes a real solution for problems faced by coral reefs must:

• Attack all problems simultaneously;
• Understand how local problems affect global problems and vice versa;
• Understand how social and economic problems affect biological and physical problems and vice versa;
• Explore the effects of different management strategies on all problems; and
• Allow managers to learn and adapt. 

Modelling is an important management technology that allows decision makers and reef users to see the dynamics of the whole reef system – the biophysical and socio-economic parts.  

Background

Through its work, the CRTR Modelling and Decision Support Working Group (MDSWG) is creating an integrated scientific understanding of the way in which people interact with coral reefs.  

Specifically, the group’s research aims to develop modelling resources to enable reef managers to develop scenarios for their own areas, to better understand the links between local, regional and global processes and to access realistic scientific and economic data over the Internet. 

Our Research

Research Activities

 The MDSWG integrates the work of the other five scientific working groups, and combines this with social, economic, ecological and physical information. Scenario building will allow the forecasting of reef ecosystem response to stress under different management/use options (including upstream or offsite development). This will provide decision-makers with the basis to improve management interventions and the design or strengthening of relevant policies that contribute to the sustainability of coral reef ecosystems.

Included in this type of synthesis and analysis may be the impact of human stress on altering trophic relationships on coral reefs, particularly the relationship between nutrients, overfishing and the overgrowth of corals by seaweeds and the reversibility of transitions between coral dominated and algal-dominated states.

The major design goals of the MDSWG include:

• Long-term field efforts of the various working groups’ results to parameterise models.
• Decision support systems based on high priority needs in developing nations.
• Strong local capacity to maintain and improve the systems after initial development.
• Building on current expertise in Australia and the US in agent-based modeling, supplemented by partners in Europe, combined with the considerable body of knowledge of coral reef ecology and hydrodynamics accumulated by the various working groups.

Research Update [Download summary, July 2008]

Fundamental ecological models 
Data from reefs worldwide has enabled revision of the parameters for the local ecological models and derived parameter ranges. Work is now proceeding with MDSWG members in Mexico and Philippines to change the ranges for application to specific reef areas at the local scale, such as Banco Chinchorro (Mexico) and Bolinao (Philippines). For the deterministic local models, using University College London (UCL) computer clusters, parameter sweeps across the derived parameter ranges have tested the probability of a phase shift from a coral- to an algal-dominated state. Ongoing tests aim to establish how many parameter sets need to be sampled for accurate results.

Fundamental socio-economic models 
The Working Group is focussed on resolving a modelling ontology issue resulting from the need to ensure that the smooth coupling of the models between natural and social science domains.

Regional scale bio-physical models 
A test implementation of a regional scale bio-physical model for the Meso-American Barrier Reef region has been built, deriving parameterization and initial conditions data from MDSWG members in Mexico, and output from the Meso-American Barrier Reef Systems Project Synoptic Monitoring Data. Repeated model runs have been executed using the University of Tasmania’s supercomputer facility, TPAC (http://www.tpac.org.au).

Models of Meso-American Barrier Reef 
The Chinchorro Bank Information System and databases for Mahahual and Xclak systems are progressing through assembly and organisation of data, including spatial analysis of fish and benthic communities.

Models of Philippine reefs 
Formal analysis of spatio-temporal dynamics of fish and benthic communities of Bolinao-Anda reef system is providing input to datasets for paramaterisation of the standard local model.

Who we are

Working Group Members

• Working Group members bring international experience to this targeted research.

Project Partners

• Working Group partners bring capacity to this research endeavour.

Links 

• IMAGES: Modelling & Decison Support Working Group  

Contact

Modelling & Decision Support Working Group:

Chair: Dr Roger Bradbury 
Australian National University 
CANBERRA, 2600

Co-chair: Dr Pascal Perez
Australian National University 
CANBERRA, 2600

Project Executing Agency:

Global Coral Reef Targeted Research and Capacity Building for Management Program 
The University of Queensland 
Brisbane QLD 4072 
Australia 
Tel: 61 7 3346 9942 
Fax: 61 7 3365 4755 
Email: info@gefcoral.org  

Information Resources

• Poster: CRTR Program Modelling & Decision Support Working Group [download]
• Brochure: CRTR Program Summary [download]
• Research Update, July 2008 [download]