Coral reefs provide significant ecosystem services including food security and coastal protection to people and property, aside from representing a major tourist attraction. Corals around the world are irreversibly transforming due to unprecedented rapid environmental change. Recent mass bleaching events have shown the impact of climate change driven marine heatwaves for coral reef health and the demise of reef structure. Because returning coral reefs to their past healthy state is no longer an option, there is a pressing need to understand, quantify and model the impact of new environmental conditions on coral reefs.
Eco-morphodynamics are important in coral reefs, however, most of the research has occurred in isolation within disciplines, focussing on specific aspects of biology, geology, or engineering alone. This multi-disciplinary presentation focuses on recent advances in understanding how coral reefs interact with waves and sediments under climate change. Using multiple spatial and temporal scales, the presentation discusses the processes that lead to lagoon infilling, rubble formation and transport, coral island development and evolution, and wave dissipation. This research delves into what these processes mean for an uncertain future and how the new knowledge and models inform nature-based solutions.