| Abstract Submission No. | ABS-4.1-0046 |
| Title of Abstract | Site Suitability Model on Coral Recruit Resilience in the Palk Bay Region Using Geoinformatics Tools: An Application to Coral Restoration |
| Authors | Arasarathinam Dennis*, Chockalingam Muthiah Ramakritinan, Lakshmanan Senthilnathan |
| Organisation | AMET University |
| Address | AMET Univeristy Chenai, Tamilnadu, India Pincode: 603112 E-mail: dennis.oceantech@gmail.com |
| Country | India |
| Presentation | Oral |
| Abstract | Coral restoration is one of the necessary conservation tools for coral recovery from current Anthropocene climate change. The present study carried out a site suitability model on coral recruit resilience in the coral region of Palk Bay using geospatial machine learning model including coral geomorphology, biological, environmental and anthropogenic indicators. Coral geomorphology of Palk Bay revealed that total reef area of Palk Bay was 2.52 kmē using LISS-IV maximum likelihood classification. Steel quadrate (0.25m2) was used to assess recruitment density and Line Intercept Transect (LIT) was used to assess the biological indicators, which consisted the live and healthy coral cover (LHC), live coral with macroalgal cover (LCMC), crustose coralline algae (CCA), animal interaction (AI), and herbivorous fish intensity (HB). Environmental indicators were estimated using the standard protocol, which including the PAR, summer season SST climatology, turbidity, Kd(490), total alkalinity (TA), and eutrophication index (EI). Furthermore, Anthropogenic indicators were selected including fishing pressure and anthropogenic physical damage to corals. The lowest prediction error (0.28%) of the hierarchical regression model in the Palk Bay revealed that LC, CCA, HB, and TA have positively supported to the coral recruit resilience in Palk Bay. Whereas, LCMC, turbidity, and Kd(490) were contributed to declining the coral resilience. The selected suitable model algorithm and coral geomorphology of the Palk Bay were applied to the ArcGIS Model Builder. The final suitability map of the Palk Bay classified the higher values as very high suitability that noticed at Vadakdu and Olaikuda reef sites. Meanwhile, low and very low suitability were noticed at the Mandapam, Ariyangundu, Pamban and Thangachimadam reef sites. These results have suggested that the regulation of macroalgal proliferation and herbivorous fishing are necessary actions to enhance coral recruit resilience in coral ecosystems of the Palk Bay. |
| Keywords | Site suitability model, Maximum likelihood classification, Hierarchical regression model, Coral resilience, Coral restoration, Palk Bay |