Drivers of coastal benthic communities in a complex environmental setting.

Analyzing the environmental factors affecting benthic communities in coastal areas is crucial for uncovering key factors that require conservation action. Here, we collected benthic and environmental (physical-chemical-historical and land-based) data for 433 transects in Taiwan. Using a k-means approach, five communities dominated by crustose coralline algae, turfs, stony corals, digitate, or bushy octocorals were first delineated.

Impacts of heat stress and storm events on the benthic communities of Kenting National Park (Taiwan).

Over the past few decades, extreme events-such as ocean warming, typhoons, and coral bleaching-have been increasing in intensity and frequency, threatening coral reefs from the physiological to ecosystem level. In the present study, the impacts of rising seawater temperatures, typhoons, and coral bleaching events on benthic communities were seasonally assessed over a 21 month-period, using photo-transects at 11 sites in Kenting National Park (KNP), Taiwan. Between August 2015 and April 2017, seven typhoon events were recorded and seawater temperatures in KNP reached a maximum of 31.

Stakeholders Opinions on Multi-Use Deep Water Offshore Platform in Hsiao-Liu-Chiu, Taiwan.

This paper describes a group model building activity designed to elicit the potential effects a projected multi-use deep water offshore platform may have on its local environment, including ecological and socio-economic issues. As such a platform is proposed for construction around the island of Hsiao-Liu-Chiu, Taiwan, we organized several meetings with the local stakeholders and structured the debates using group modeling methods to promote consensus. During the process, the participants iteratively built and revised a causal-loop diagram that summarizes their opinions.

Building a stakeholder's vision of an offshore wind-farm project: A group modeling approach.

This paper describes a Group Model Building (GMB) initiative that was designed to discuss the various potential effects that an offshore wind-farm may have on its local ecology and socioeconomic development. The representatives of various organizations in the study area, Lu-Kang, Taiwan, have held several meetings, and structured debates have been organized to promote the emergence of a consensual view on the main issues and their implications. A System Dynamics (SD) model has been built and corrected iteratively with the participants through the GMB process.