A comparative study of the impact of thermal indices on Indian coral ecosystem

Coral reefs have been the diversified ecosystem in the planet. Advantages are opportunities in tourism, coastal protection and fisheries production. Corals, as key ingredient is sourced got drug manufacturing. Its distribution is evident in locations of where sea water temperature ranges between 16°C to 30°C. Their presence is >0.2% of ocean area and supports >25% of marine species. India has five reef formations. Globally, last two decades have seen an increase in reporting reef deterioration. The reason significantly attributed to be climate change, apart other challenges such as pollution, sedimentation, oil spillage, etc . Such events lead to widespread mortality of corals. Mortality during bleaching events are inevitable and varied; depends on intensity of such events. The primary reason is due to significant rise in average sea surface temperature (SST). Recovery takes time after such events, and it becomes worse with recurring events. The reefs of Indian seas have reported events of severe bleaching during 1998, 2010 and 2016. IPCC reviews show mass bleaching will be prominent in future due to elevated SST. This work tries to compare the HS values of a few regions. The data collected is from 2001 to 2017. A few significant observations are drawn which could further help us to extend the work to take help from Artificial Intelligence to make predictions for the future. This study uses the indices derived out of SST to look at relative risk faced by Indian reefs. The need for comprehensive and localized actions will be discussed.