Integrated monitoring and management scheme for conservation of tropical and subtropical coastal environments

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1) With further development of an integrated coastal environment monitoring system for more general and practical applications, we have attempted to perform coastal environmental monitoring analysis at the Philippines, Fiji, Samoa and Okinawa. Particularly, based on the analysis of LANDSAT-TM images for the past 20 years or so, which cover Sekisei Lagoon and its surroundings, Okinawa, we could detect the historical change of the coral reef environment, especially the benthic cover in the Sekisei Lagoon and the corresponding inter-annual trend of the land use and vegetation cover in the surrounding land areas, which were used to evaluate the historical changes in the red-soil discharge from each watershed. Examination of the linkage between the land use and vegetation cover characteristics and the benthic cover deterioration may provide useful information for integrated coastal zone resource management.2) For establishing integrated coastal resource management systems in Fiji, Samoa and … More the Philippines, we have set up a long-term monitoring system for terrestrial run-off in these countries and obtained its continuous data.3) For Puerto Galera, where the water pollution due to tourism development and the resultant decline of the coastal ecosystem have been increasing concern, we made comprehensive field surveys on physical, bio-chemical and ecological environments together with social surveys on local communities, in collaboration with local municipality, NGOs and university of the Philippines. Besides we performed numerical simulations on physical and water quality environments. With the results of the analyses of survey data and numerical simulations we have examined effective and sustainable ways to conserve coastal environments from a viewpoint of a "human-coastal ecology coexistence system"4) To clarify connectivity among distant reef areas, we have developed effective genetic markers for crown-of-thorns starfish and applied them for its genetic population dynamics. We have made also numerical simulations of ocean and coastal currents and larval transport. These results may provide scientific basis for establishing marine protection areas. Less