EXPERIMENTAL EVALUATION OF THE PERFORMANCE OF A HYBRID ARTIFICIAL CORAL REEF WITH BRAIN AND STAGHORN CORALS

Abstract

Considering that more than 40 percent of the world's population resides within 100 km of coastal areas [WRI, 2007], the protection of coastal communities is critical. Coral reefs provide a large variety of ecosystem services from fishing, recreation and tourism to coastal flood risk reduction to nearby populations. They act as a green, self-building and self-repairing breakwaters dissipating wave energy through wave breaking and bed friction [Beck, 2018]. However, coral reefs are not typically accounted for as a coastal infrastructure as their effects are not easy to quantify [Ferrario, 2014] as their interaction with waves depends on multiple parameters including the variable morphologies of the organisms that form the reef. In this study, the wave energy dissipation of a scaled reef model with two coral species (staghorn and brain corals) of variable cover was evaluated through a series of laboratory experiments at the University of Miami SUrge STructure Atmosphere INteraction (SUSTAIN) Facility, a wind/wave tank with hurricane capabilities. A scaled coral reef model was tested under the direct impact of swell and hurricane generated waves considering Froude similarity with a prototype reef in South Florida.