Coral reefs are among the planet's most beautiful treasures, hosting creatures strange and colorful. They're more than just pretty, though. Coral reefs provide vital habitats for a vast array of marine organisms, they are an essential piece of ocean ecosystems, and they actually protect coastlines from erosion. This week on Sea Change Radio we speak to Curt Storlazzi from the US geological survey who outlines a recent study promoting the bolstering of coral reefs off of Puerto Rico and Florida. Storlazzi compares coral reefs to seawalls in terms of protecting us from rising sea levels, gives a snapshot of the study's cost benefit analysis, and explains how the proposed reef bolstering program could help protect vulnerable coastal populations.

Narrator | 00:02 - This is Sea Change Radio, covering the shift to sustainability. I'm Alex Wise.

Curt Storlazzi (CS) | 00:24 - We're working with Nature. Nature figured out how to do this. We haven't been the nicest to nature, but we're learning that if we take care of nature, hopefully it can help continue to take care of us, and we just need to help accelerate that recovery.

Narrator | 00:39 - Coral reefs are among the planet's most beautiful treasures, hosting creatures, strange and colorful. They're more than just pretty, though Coral reefs provide vital habitats for a vast array of marine organisms. They're an essential piece of ocean ecosystems, and they actually protect coastlines from erosion. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to Curt Storlazzi from the US Geological Survey, who outlines a recent study promoting the bolstering of coral reefs off of Puerto Rico and Florida. Storlazzi compares coral reefs to sea walls in terms of protecting us from rising sea levels, gives a snapshot of the study's cost benefit analysis and explains how the proposed reef bolstering program could help protect vulnerable coastal populations.

Alex Wise (AW) | 01:44 - I am joined now on Sea Change Radio by Curt Storlazzi. He is a research geologist at the US Geological Survey, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center. Curt, welcome to Sea Change Radio. 

Curt Storlazzi (CS) | 01:53 - Thank you for having me. 

Alex Wise (AW) | 01:54 - So you and your colleagues at the USGS have just completed a study outlining the value of Coral Reef Restoration in Florida and Puerto Rico. Maybe you can summarize it for us to just get started?

Curt Storlazzi (CS) | 02:09 - What are we trying to do? We're trying to provide unbiased sound, scientific information to guide management. Over the past decade or so, uh, we show that coral reefs act like natural submerged breakwaters dissipating a lot of wave energy, and thus protecting the coastline in the associated coastal communities. Our colleagues have also shown, however, that over the past decades to half a century, that the reefs have severely degraded, they've gotten deeper and less complex, and that's allowing more wave energy to reach the shoreline, and it's causing increased erosion and, uh, and coastal, uh, flooding during the storms. So this study that we just did, which was funded by the 2017 Hurricane supplemental, so, you know, following hurricane's, Irman Maria, that really negatively impact Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and Florida, as part of the billions of dollars for recovery, the government put a little bit of money aside to say, what can we do to reduce these impacts in the future? Because we know, again, as those reefs have degraded, they've gotten deeper and, uh, less complex that's allowed more wave energy to reach shore, reach the shoreline. One, to understand of how can we work with nature to re, to, uh, increase that effectiveness of, uh, protect or the, their ability to protect the coastline. And so using a really complex modeling system, uh, it's 12 steps and like most 12 step processes, long and painful. But , it comes to a, a good conclusion. Um, basically what we were able to do is model coastal flood...