This PowerPoint is about the human impact on the Great Barrier Reef. It is the largest coral reef ecosystem on earth. It is located in Queensland Australia. Humans are impacting this coral reef in many different ways. We are hurting the Great Barrier Reef by polluting it with many different things such as from Sediment, nutrients, pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, and human sewage that gets carried away from run-off and ends up at the Great Barrier Reef. This type of pollution has quadrupled over the last 150 years. The climate change is also having an impact on this coral reef. This can affect their ecosystem by causing changes in the water temperature, food chain, and even ocean currents. All of those effects in return cause more problems such as affecting breeding cycles and migrations. The Great Barrier Reef has experienced two massive coral bleaching. These two events caused five percent of the coral to be badly damaged. Bleaching is caused when temperatures increase. If this continues for eight weeks or more it can cause the coral to die. Other causes of bleaching can be from freshwater inundation, sediment or pollutant run-off that causes poor water quality. Eighty percent of the land by this reef is farmland that is used for agricultural production such as sugar cane and beef cattle grazing. These farms are using chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides that are getting into the run-off water that is then taken to the reef where it causes damage. These are just a few of the human caused problems that the Great Barrier Reef is suffering from. I think that we need to do something about this problem before it is too late and we destroy not only the Great Barrier Reef but all of our coral reefs.

~BT