The main goal is to train people of Halong bay area in the use of mathematical marine models. The focus of this study is the management of corals in the bay and the process of coral bleaching.

The high biodiversity of Halong bay area is under treat. The underlying mechanisms are manyfold so before starting a project the problem was well analysed. A meeting with stakeholders of the Halong bay region revealed eight different direct causes: habitat destruction (deforestation, dredging, dumping, coastal urbanization), oil pollution, eutrophication (aquaculture, agriculture, tourism, industry), industrial continuous pollution, lack of integrated management, no enforcement of management, natural hazards and depletion of natural resources (overfishing).

Population increase is believed to induce most of the processes leading to these biodiversity loss causes. Other primary driving forces for biodiversity loss are the lack of knowledge of local people (fishermen), natural hazards, climate change and the lack of a management plan integrated at all governmental levels and law enforcement. The degradation of the Halong bay ecosystem has a direct impact on the local communities. The clearest example is the effect of the depletion of natural resources on the livelihoods of local fishermen and tourism industry (expected if the current trend is maintained). Biodiversity loss also changes the structure of the food web which leads to a decreased ecosystem health. The resulting impoverished ecosystem has a negative impact on the appeal of the site as world natural heritage, hence biodiversity loss has a negative effect on the livelihoods of local people depending on tourism. Further analysis revealed some self-enforcing mechanisms in biodiversity loss event chain. One example (there are more) is that tourism is used to compensate for the unsustainable fishery sector, which leads to a higher food demand by the extra tourists which leads to more aquaculture so more eutrophication, hence a less healthy ecosystem, hence a less sustainable fishery sector.

This project focuses on understanding the processes involved in the first direct cause of biodiversity loss in Halong bay: habitat destruction. Infrastructure developments increase dredging and dumping activities of the area, also the development of more port activities demands more dredging. These activities in combination with coastal erosion due to mangrove cutting and dumping of coal mine waste into the bay damage the sea grass beds and the coral reefs. During this programme the sediment flows of the bay are modeled to study the effect on coral bleaching. Are corals under treat because of human activities related to turbidity or is climate change with higher temperatures the more endangering factor.