A Thousand Cuts? An Assessment of Small-Boat Grounding Damage to Shallow Corals of the Florida Keys

For thousands of years coral reefs have survived natural impacts, such as storms, diseases, and predation. What they cannot withstand is the combination of these natural impacts with severe or repeated anthropogenic damage, such as overfishing, sedimentation, and excess nutrients. Reefs around Jamaica and San Andres have been devastated by this combination,

and Florida reefs are widely reported to decline.