Faculty of Fisheries, Izmir Katip Çelebi University, Izmir, Turkey.
Department of Life Sciences, Eilat Campus, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Eilat, Israel.
J Environ Manage. 2022 Aug 1;315:115159. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.115159. Epub 2022 May 3.
Shipwrecks attract divers. Therefore, decommissioned marine vehicles are used as artificial reefs for recreational diving tourism around the world. We examined divers' attitudes towards shipwrecks and their function as an ecological enhancers. The study was carried out in the Karaburun Peninsula, Turkey, where two passenger ships were sunk as artificial wreck reefs to attract diving tourism. Using a questionnaire survey accompanied by face-to-face interviews, of both certified divers and non-certified discovery divers we collected information about divers reefs preferences, perception of artificial reefs as well as their socio-demographic characteristics, dive experiences etc. Differences in divers' wreck (historical or artificial) and reef preferences (natural reefs or artificial wrecks) were analyzed with the Mann-Whitney U test. Overall, divers held the position that artificial wreck reefs provide ecological benefits on fish diversity and stocks (p < 0.05), and experienced divers supported this position more that novice ones. However, experience and number of annual dives did not affect this notion. Non-certified respondents were mostly neutral towards the ecologic and management statements. However, the majority of divers (84%) preferred to dive on natural reefs rather than on shipwrecks. Similarly, most of them (83%) preferred diving to historical shipwrecks which sank in wars or accidents, and not on ships intentionally sunk as attractions. These findings, which are in line with previous literature, put a question mark on the growing practice of sinking nearly any ship to create diving attractions.
沉船吸引潜水者。因此，退役的海洋车辆被用作世界各地休闲潜水旅游的人工礁石。我们研究了潜水者对沉船的态度及其作为生态增强剂的功能。该研究在土耳其的卡拉布伦半岛进行，那里有两艘客船被沉没作为人工沉船礁石，以吸引潜水旅游。我们使用附有面对面访谈的问卷调查，收集了有关潜水者礁石偏好、对人工礁石的看法以及他们的社会人口特征、潜水经验等信息。使用曼-惠特尼 U 检验分析了潜水者沉船（历史或人工）和礁石偏好（自然礁石或人工沉船）的差异。总体而言，潜水者认为人工沉船礁石对鱼类多样性和种群具有生态益处（p<0.05），经验丰富的潜水者比新手更支持这一观点。然而，经验和每年潜水次数并不影响这种观点。非认证受访者对生态和管理声明大多持中立态度。然而，大多数潜水者（84%）更喜欢在自然礁石上潜水，而不是在沉船中潜水。同样，他们中的大多数人（83%）更喜欢在因战争或事故沉没的历史沉船中潜水，而不是在有意作为景点沉没的船只中潜水。这些发现与之前的文献一致，对越来越多的沉船行为提出了质疑，沉船行为几乎任何船只都可以用来创造潜水景点。
