Artificial Habitats for Fisheries Enhancement in the Australian Region

This paper outlines developments over about 20 years in the construction of and ecological research on artificial reefs, fish aggregation devices (FAD's), and other artificial habitats designed to enhance fish populations and fisheries in the Australian region (including New Zealand and Papua New Guinea). Work was initially carried out on multicomponent reefs using a variety of waste materials, as well as some specially constructed concrete and steel structures. Later studies concentrated on single-component reefs, again mainly using waste materials. Although no definitive conclusions were reached on the relative effectiveness of the different materials used, waste motor vehicle tires and derelict ships were generally judged to be the best all-around materials for single-component reef construction in sheltered estuarine and offshore marine environments, respectively, in this region. FAD's comprising polyvinylchloride pipe sparbuoys (or in some areas polyurethane foam floats) attached to railroad car wheel anchors by polyethylene rope and chain, and supporting attractor drapes of synthetic mesh webbing, also provedtobegenerallysuccessfulin thisarea. Overall conclusions for the Australian region include the predominant use of waste materials in artificial reef construction, which has been primarily aimed at recreational fisheries enhancement; the successful use of FAD's for both recreational and commercial fisheries enhancement; the need for further and better planned research into and monitoring of the effectiveness of both of these enhancement methods; and the need for future research into the effectiveness of unfished "artificial habitat reserves" in enhancing fisheries production from surrounding fished areas.

GCM-data intercomparison: the good news and the bad

EXTRACT (SEE PDF FOR FULL ABSTRACT): General circulation models (GCMs) are probably the most sophisticated theoretical tools we have to simulate possible climatic effects of increasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. ... As will be illustrated here using a variety of examples, although the models do simulate "reality" very well on the "grand" scale (e.g., global, hemispheric, zonal), substantial differences are more apparent as the scale is reduced to areas particularly relevant to regional planners. It is particularly important that workers more clearly recognize the potential dangers in relying too heavily on simple summary statistics such as averages estimated over large regional scales. Many shortcomings are apparent in the model simulations of the present climate, indicating that further model improvements are needed to achieve reliable regional and seasonal projections of the future climatic conditions.