Successful restoration and near decade-long monitoring effort by NOAA Corals damaged in 2002 when a boat ran aground in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary are now thriving following a restoration and near decade-long monitoring effort, according to a new NOAA report released. With hundreds of groundings happening each year in the sanctuary, lessons learned from this coral reef restoration and monitoring will guide future restoration efforts.Following a 2002 boat grounding near Key West, restoration biologists assessed the damage and reattached broken corals.In August 2002, the 36-foot long boat Lagniappe II ran aground on a shallow coral reef near Key West, Fla., damaging approximately 376 square-feet of living coral in the sanctuary. After sanctuary staff assessed the damage to the reef, restoration biologists used special cement that hardens under water to reattach 473 corals and coral fragments that had been toppled or dislodged during the grounding. The majority of affected corals were boulder star coral, a primary reef building coral in the Florida Keys.To determine the progress of their restoration efforts, the sanctuary and the National Coral Reef Institute of Nova Southeastern University's Oceanographic Center, used digital photographs and highly specialized computer software to count the types and amounts of ...
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