The initial workshop to generate the ideas for this paper took place in Brisbane, Australia, July 2012, with joint financial support from Institute for Water, Environment & Health, United Nations University (UNU-INWEH) and the Global Change Institute, University of Queensland. PFS thanks Lisa Benedetti, UNU-INWEH for help in planning and running the workshop, and helping with

the subsequent flow of communication among selleck products authors. “
“The continuing degradation of coral reefs around the world (Bruno and Selig, 2007, De’ath et al., 2012 and Gardner et al., 2003) has serious consequences for the provision of ecosystem goods and services to local and regional communities. While climate change is considered the most serious risk to coral reefs around the world, agricultural pollution threatens approximately 25% of the total global reef area (Burke, 2011) (Fig. 1). To ensure the future of coral reefs, the 2012 Consensus Statement on Climate Change and Coral Reefs has called for the immediate management of local anthropogenic pressures including reducing land-based pollution (12th International Coral Reef Symposium, 9–13 July 2012). Attempts are being made to reduce land-based pollution to coral reefs (Brodie et al., 2012 and Richmond

et al., 2007), however, these efforts are impeded by a current Alectinib datasheet paucity of studies demonstrating whether improvements check details to coral reef health are realized following watershed management. For the next 50 years, riverine fluxes of sediment, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) to tropical coastal areas are projected to increase (Mackenzie et al., 2002). It is therefore timely to inform coral reef policy using insights gained from global cases that were successful in reducing agricultural pollution to coastal ecosystems. Here, we synthesize successful examples of reduced agricultural pollution that could be used as a model to improve coral reef

water quality, with the assumption that improved water quality will result in a concomitant improvement in ecological health of coral reefs. Previous reviews of the problem of coastal eutrophication (Boesch, 2002 and Cloern, 2001) do not include recent reports on reduced fluxes of sediment and nutrients at end-of-river (Chu et al., 2009, Duarte et al., 2009, GEF-UNDP, 2006, Pastuszak et al., 2012, Stålnacke et al., 2003 and Windolf et al., 2012), and associated declines in nutrient concentrations and algal biomass in receiving coastal waters (Carstensen et al., 2006, Duarte et al., 2009, Jurgensone et al., 2011 and Oguz and Velikova, 2010). Our review focuses on restoration of diffuse fluxes of freshwater, suspended sediment, and nutrients, while acknowledging the presence of other pollutants (e.g. pesticides, herbicides and heavy metals) and their potential impact on coral reef resilience (Van Dam et al., 2011).