Coral reefs are shallow-water ecosystems that consist of reefs made of calcium carbonate which is mostly secreted by reef-building corals and encrusting macroalgae. They occupy less than 0.1%
of the ocean floor yet play multiple important roles throughout the tropics, housing high levels of biological diversity as well as providing key ecosystem goods and services such as habitat for fisheries, coastal protection, and appealing environments for tourism (Wild et al., 2011). About 275 million people live within 30 km of a coral reef (Burke et al., 2011) and derive some benefits from the ecosystem services that coral reefs provide (Hoegh-Guldberg, 2011), including provisioning (food, livelihoods, construction material, medicine), regulating (shoreline protection, water quality), supporting (primary production, nutrient cycling), and cultural (religion, tourism) services. This is especially true for the many coastal and small island nations in the world’s tropical regions. (…)
Gattuso J.-P., Hoegh-Guldberg O. & Pörtner H.-O., 2014. Coral reefs. In: Field C. B., Barros V. R., Dokken D. J., Mach K. J., Mastrandrea M. D., Bilir T. E., Chatterjee M., Ebi K. L., Estrada Y. O., Genova R. C., Girma B., Kissel E. S., Levy A. N., MacCracken S., Mastrandrea P. R. & White L. L. (Eds.), Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, pp. 97-100. Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press. Report chapter.
