Singapore’s coral reefs have been exposed to five decades of increased sedimentation that reduced underwater visibility from over 10 m in the early 1960s to under 2 m today.
The lower depth limit of scleractinian coral growth moved up from 10 m to 6 m, while live coral cover decline is less apparent now than in the early decades of augmented sediment loading.
Coral community structure has changed with dominance shifting to more low-light tolerant species such as those of the genera Pectinia and Turbinaria.
Reef restoration to increase coral cover of degraded reefs and initiate colonisation of non reef areas is considered to be viable following observations of predictable mass spawning events, recruitment and vigorous growth, but the techniques employed need to account for the high sediment conditions and destabilised reef substrate.