WESTPAC Workshop on Research and Monitoring of the Ecological Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Coral Reef Ecosystems, Phuket, Thailand, 19-21 January 2015.

• Other Authors: Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: UNESCO-IOC 2015
• Subjects: Ocean Acidification; Coral Reefs; Ecosystems; Marine Ecosystems; Climate Change; Seawater temperature; Alkalinity; Pacific; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1834/42209

The workshop exchanged information on existing and proposed ocean acidification monitoring and research approaches, methods, and techniques at global, regional, and national levels; established an ocean acidification research and observing network in the Western Pacific and its adjacent region by bringing together regional experts who have been making efforts on the research and monitoring of ocean acidification. In view of the pressing need to draw the attention of high-level policy-makers and relevant stakeholders in the region to ocean acidification, the workshop established a task force to start formulating, with technical assistance of the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program, an outreach flyer on ocean acidification and its social-economic impacts in the region. With the case study on the US NOAA National Coral Reef Monitoring Program, particularly its Pacific Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program, the workshop recognized great challenges and gaps in monitoring the ecological impacts of ocean acidification on coral reef ecosystems in the region. Given the limited understanding on the ecosystem responses to ocean acidification against a critical need to develop meaningful projections on future impacts of ocean acidification on marine ecosystem, especially on coral reefs in the region to enable resource and fisheries managers, and policy-makers to develop effective long-term mitigation and adaptation strategies for the people of the region, the workshop stressed the need, building on existing coral reef monitoring initiatives, to develop a joint long-term monitoring programme/network on the impacts of ocean acidification on coral reefs in the region. To this end, the workshop selected several pilot sites as a starting point for developing the regional monitoring program/network. A table for monitoring capacity analysis was developed and will be distributed to participants willing to join the programme development, with a view to analysing the current monitoring capacity, identifying common monitoring methods, ...