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Applying Habitat Equivalency Analysis For Coral Reef Damage Assessment And Restoration, J. Walter Milon, Richard E. Dodge (Editor)

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Quantifying economic damages and restoration measures for injuries to coral reefs has been a difficult task. In the U.S., habitat equivalency analysis (HEA) has emerged as a novel tool that combines biological and economic information to identify replacement habitats of an appropriate scale to substitute for the interim losses resulting from coral reef injuries. This article provides a review of the basic principles underlying HEA and a discussion of important considerations in applying HEA. These considerations include: how to describe coral reef functions and related human uses, recovery rates of coral reef organisms at injured sites with natural and active …