New research from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), carried out within the NWO-funded SEALINK project, shows how improving the way land–sea connections are mapped can clarify how pollution and land use influence coral reef health.
What happens on land does not stop at the shoreline. Pollution, land use change, and urban development all influence coastal ecosystems, yet tracing how these pressures move from land to sea remains challenging.
Curaçao as a case study for land–sea connections
New research by Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam environmental geographer Rex Steward (Institute for Environmental Studies, IVM) and collaborators, uses Curaçao as a case study to examine how land-based pressures such as sediments and nutrients travel from landscapes toward nearby reefs. Curaçao provides a compelling setting to explore these dynamics, where episodic runoff and coastal currents interact with land use patterns to shape how pressures reach marine ecosystems.
The research, which was published in Environmental Pollution, brings together insights from hydrology, oceanography, and spatial modelling - fields that are often studied separately but must be connected to understand how land-based pressures reach the sea.
Mapping pathways from land to reef
Rather than relying on a single representation of land-based impact, the study evaluates how different ways of defining and modelling these pathways influence conclusions about reef exposure. The findings show that how environmental pressures are mapped and interpreted can significantly shape our understanding of land–sea relationships. The results also show that while land-based activities help explain patterns of marine pollution, declines in coral health cannot be attributed to pollution alone, as reefs are shaped by multiple interacting pressures.
By refining these approaches, the study strengthens ridge-to-reef science and helps bridge terrestrial planning and marine conservation - particularly in island contexts like Curaçao, where land-use decisions can have direct consequences for coastal ecosystems that support biodiversity, tourism, and local livelihoods.
Photo credit: Curaçao Tourism Board