Do you know about Singapore’s reefs?

March 16, 2010

As I was browsing through the stash of old theses in the lab, I came across one entitled “Human Impacts on Coral reefs in Singapore”. After reading through, I became inspired to compare the survey data obtained by William Ho (author of the thesis) with present-day data. Over a span of almost 20 years, will there be any change to the divers’ perception on Singapore’s coral reefs? Land scarcity in Singapore is the major driving force for the intensive coastal development and land reclamation, resulting in an estimated loss of up to 60% coral reefs in Singapore. In the process, most of the affected areas were either buried or destroyed; leaving the remaining reefs exposed to long-term impacts of high sedimentation and hence leading to weaker light penetration.

We pause here and ask some questions:

• How will these long-term man-made activities affect our reefs?
• What do the local divers know of the reefs’ conditions?
• How can divers help in conserving these local reefs?
• Does setting up a marine park help in conservation of reefs in Singapore?

With some of these questions to answer, Zeehan and I (together with feedback and inputs from various individuals), we came up with this “Singapore’s Diver Perception”. This survey not only comprise of overlapping questions from the old thesis to make comparisons, new questions have been added to aid in future conservation considerations. These data serve as important baseline information necessary for publication and a tool to help in planning effectively, for example, incorporating feedback into the Blue Plan. The outcome of this project will go a long way and we hope that it will help conserve our reefs.

Feel free to contact myself, Mei Lin or Zeehan to make any enquiries or clarifications with respect to the survey. Please help spread the word of the survey too. Thank you!

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