Dinsdale Elizabeth A, Harriott Vicki J
School of Tropical Environment Studies and Geography, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland 4811, Australia.
Environ Manage. 2004 Jan;33(1):126-39. doi: 10.1007/s00267-003-3056-9. Epub 2003 Nov 21.
Because environmental conservation can remove scarce natural resources from competing uses, it is important to gain support for conservation programs by demonstrating that management actions have been effective in achieving their goals. One way to do this is to show that selected significant environmental variables (indicators) vary between managed and unmanaged areas or change over time following implementation of a management regime. However, identifying indicators that reflect environmental conditions relevant to management practices has proven difficult. This paper focuses on developing a framework for choosing indicators in a coral reef habitat. The framework consisted of three phases: (1) information gathering to identify candidate variables; (2) field-testing candidate variables at sites that differ in intensity of human activity, thus identifying potential indicators; and (3) evaluating potential indicators against a set of feasibility criteria to identify the most useful indicators. To identify indicators suitable to measure the success of a management strategy to reduce anchor damage to a coral reef, 24 candidate variables were identified and evaluated at sites with different intensities of anchoring. In this study, measures that reflected injuries to coral colonies were generally more efficient than traditional measures of coral cover in describing the effects of anchoring. The number of overturned colonies was identified as the single most useful indicator of coral reef condition associated with anchoring intensities. The indicator selection framework developed here has the advantages of being transparent, cost efficient, and readily transferable to other types of human activities and management strategies.
由于环境保护能将稀缺的自然资源从相互竞争的用途中解放出来，通过证明管理行动在实现其目标方面是有效的来获得对保护计划的支持就显得很重要。做到这一点的一种方法是表明选定的重要环境变量（指标）在管理区域和未管理区域之间存在差异，或者在实施管理制度后随时间发生变化。然而，事实证明，识别反映与管理实践相关的环境状况的指标很困难。本文着重于为在珊瑚礁栖息地选择指标制定一个框架。该框架由三个阶段组成：（1）收集信息以识别候选变量；（2）在人类活动强度不同的地点对候选变量进行实地测试，从而识别潜在指标；（3）根据一套可行性标准评估潜在指标，以识别最有用的指标。为了识别适合衡量减少锚对珊瑚礁破坏的管理策略成功与否的指标，在锚定强度不同的地点识别并评估了24个候选变量。在本研究中，在描述锚定的影响方面，反映珊瑚群体受损情况的指标通常比传统的珊瑚覆盖度指标更有效。倾覆群体的数量被确定为与锚定强度相关的珊瑚礁状况最有用的单一指标。这里开发的指标选择框架具有透明、成本效益高且易于应用于其他类型的人类活动和管理策略的优点。
