Coral reef restoration is an increasingly important part of tropical marine conservation. Information about what motivates coral reef restoration as well as its success and cost is not well understood but needed to inform restoration decisions. We systematically review and synthesise data from mostly scientific studies published in peer‐reviewed and grey literature on the motivations for coral reef restoration, the variables measured, outcomes reported, the cost per hectare of the restoration project, the survival of restored corals, the duration of the project and its overall spatial extent depending on the restoration technique employed. The main motivation to restore coral reefs for the projects assessed was to further our ecological knowledge and improve restoration techniques, with coral growth, productivity and survival being the main variables measured. The median project cost was 400,000 US$ ha‐1 (2010 US$), ranging from 6,000 US$ ha‐1 for the nursery phase of coral gardening to 4,000,000 US$ ha‐1 for substrate addition to build an artificial reef. Restoration projects were mostly of short duration (1‐2 years) and over small spatial extents (0.01 ha or 108 m2). Median reported survival of restored corals was 60.9%. Future research to survey practitioners who do not publish their discoveries would complement this work. Our findings and database provide critical data to inform future research in coral reef restoration.
Coral reef restoration database
This database represents the core part of the synthesis review "Motivations, success and cost of coral reef restoration". It contains information on cost and success of restoration projects worldwide described by the published literature, some grey literature and a few personal communications. This database is an update of the coral reef section of the database "The cost and feasibility of marine coastal restoration" which captured information on the restoration of coral reefs, seagrass, mangroves, saltmarshes, and oyster reefs until November 2014. The update involves data extracted from the literature published until March 2018, data on motivations to carry out the restoration projects, information on whether the Standards for Ecological Restoration were followed by the projects, the category of the outcome reported and the variables measured to report on the project success. All economic values were updated with the newest data provided by The World Bank (March 2019). The coral reef restoration database contains the full reference, general information about the publication and project, the restoration action undertaken, species involved, location, a description on the type of cost reported, information on funding sources, project duration (in years), the area restored in hectare (ha), the converted restoration cost in 2010 US$ ha-1, feasibility information (including reasons for success or failure), and restoration success in terms of % survival of restored organisms. We accounted for pre-transplant (i.e. survival of coral spat/larvae in culture before rearing them in nursery or out-planting), transplant (i.e. survival of coral fragments during nursery period), post-transplant (i.e. survival of coral fragments after out-planting to the reef) survival as well as for the overall survival averaged over the former three categories. See ‘Methods’ of the publication for a detailed database description for a detailed summary of the database information.
Coral_section_v2.xlsx
