The environmental impact of recreational diving is the effects of recreational scuba diving on the underwater environment, which is largely the effects of diving tourism on the marine environment. It is not uncommon for highly trafficked dive destinations to have more adverse effects with visible signs of diving's negative impacts due in large part to divers who have not been trained to sufficient competence in the skills required for the local environment, an inadequate pre-dive orientation, or lack of a basic understanding of biodiversity and the delicate balance of aquatic ecosystems. There may also be indirect positive effects as the environment is recognised by the local communities to be worth more in good condition than degraded by inappropriate use, and conservation efforts get support from dive communities who promote environmental awareness, and teach low impact diving and the importance of respecting marine life. There are also global coral reef monitoring networks in place which include local volunteer divers assisting in the collection of data for scientific monitoring of coral reef systems, which may eventually have a net positive impact on the environment.
During the 20th century recreational scuba diving was considered to have generally low environmental impact, and was consequently one of the activities permitted in most marine protected areas. Since the 1970s diving has changed from an elite activity to a more accessible recreation, marketed to a very wide demographic. To some extent better equipment has been substituted for more rigorous training, and the reduction in perceived risk has shortened minimum training requirements by several training agencies. Training has concentrated on an acceptable risk to the diver, and paid less attention to the environment. The increase in the popularity of diving and in tourist access to sensitive ecological systems has led to the recognition that the activity can have significant environmental consequences. [1]
Scuba diving has grown in popularity during the 21st century, as is shown by the number of certifications issued worldwide, which has increased to about 23 million by 2016 at about one million per year. [2] Scuba diving tourism is a growth industry, and it is necessary to consider environmental sustainability, as the expanding impact of divers can adversely affect the marine environment in several ways. The impact also depends on the specific environment; tropical coral reefs are more easily damaged by poor diving skills than some temperate reefs, where the environment is more robust and resilient due to rougher normal sea conditions and fewer fragile, slow-growing organisms. The same pleasant sea conditions that allow development of relatively delicate and highly diverse ecologies also attract the greatest number of tourists, including divers who dive infrequently, exclusively on vacation, and never fully develop the skills to dive in an environmentally friendly way. [3] Various strategies for environmental management are being tested, in an attempt to achieve a sustainable balance between conservation and commercial exploitation.
Active avoidance of benthos contact requires appropriate motivation, and successful avoidance requires appropriate competence. Low impact diving training has been shown to be effective in reducing diver contact in suitably motivated divers. [1] Experience appears to be the most important factor in explaining divers' underwater behaviour, followed by their attitude towards diving and the environment, and personality type. [4]
All underwater environments frequented by recreational divers are potentially affected, but the impact is observed to be greater where there are large numbers of dives or the environment has fragile slow-growing organisms or delicate structures. The more obvious examples are tropical coral reefs and flooded caves with fragile speleothems. Relatively large numbers of studies have been done on tropical coral reefs as the pressure on them has been perceived to be highest. [1] Coral reefs are to some extent self-repairing, and also sustain damage from non-anthropogenic causes, so an acceptable level of continuous diver induced degradation is theoretically possible, which would be matched by the natural recovery rate. [1] Underwater speleothems, once broken, do not regenerate at all while the cave remains flooded, and remain broken forever, if human timespans are considered. Underwater cultural heritage in the form of historically important wrecks and archaeological sites are also susceptible to irreversible damage, [5] but they are usually constantly deteriorating in any case. Diver impact mainly accelerates the inevitable.
Subtropical, temperate, and polar marine reef environments vary considerably in their ability to recover from damage, and have historically been considered less impacted by diving, consequently fewer studies are available on diver damage, reef recovery and sustainable carrying capacity. [1] These areas are emerging as diving destinations, as is research on diver impact on their environments. [6]
Research on the effects of divers on tropical coral reefs has shown reduced coral cover on heavily dived sites and a change in coral structure, with more resilient corals becoming dominant and a loss of species diversity over time. These reefs may be less resilient to other stressors like disease outbreaks and severe weather damage. [1]
There is persuasive evidence that reefs can be damaged and the amenity value of dive sites compromised by badly planned or over-intensive tourist use. Marine tourism affects reef communities directly through disturbance such as structural damage to corals, boats grounding on reefs and damage by anchors, and indirectly through alteration of water quality by nutrient enrichment and pollution by toxic substances, waste water and increased turbidity. The level of degradation depends on the intensity, frequency, time and type of use and the specific environment. [7]
Diver impact damage to corals includes skeletal breakage of branching species, tissue abrasion, possibly leading to infection by coral diseases, and an overall reduction of hard coral coverage on reefs. Diving related activities may also reduce the reef's resilience to reef stressors like climate change and bleaching events. [8]
In some frequently dived tropical coral reef sites recreational divers have caused negative ecological impacts by inadvertent impacts with live corals causing physical damage at a rate faster than compensated for by natural recovery. The long term result is reef degradation. [9] One of the common challenges for local policy and management is maximising tourism benefits while also reducing environmental degradation to long-term sustainable levels. [8]
In the soft sediment bottomed "muck diving" environment, it was observed that photography causes greater environmental disturbances than effects caused by diving experience, certification level, gender or age. Divers came into contact with the substrate more often on soft sediment than on coral reefs, but environmental damage was not greater. Divers tend to touch animals more frequently when observing or photographing cryptobenthic fauna, and spent up to five times longer in interactions when using dSLR-cameras. Long-term impacts of this behaviour on cryptobenthic fauna and soft sediment habitats are unknown. [10]
The impacts of photographer behaviour and photographic flashes on a small sample of benthic fish species was investigated. The study showed negligible effects beyond those caused by human presence alone. Flash photography caused no discernible ocular changes in seahorses and feeding success was not affected. Physical handling of animals produced strong stress responses. [11]
Diver impact on subtropical, and particularly temperate reefs, is less researched than tropical reefs. The perception is that these reefs are less vulnerable than tropical reefs and the sessile species are less exposed to diver impact. Research in the Mediterranean in Spain indicates that sessile organisms with fragile and brittle calcareous or corneous skeletons are not resilient to frequent disturbances by divers. [1]
Diver contact with the bottom is also prevalent on temperate reefs, in freshwater environments, and in caves. One of the main forms mentioned is fin contact with the bottom sediment, raising particulate material to into the water column and degrading visibility, [12] but disturbance of sediment and delicate benthic biofilms by fin wash without direct contact is also a concern. [13]
The impact of recreational scuba diving on recreational dive values and the cultural heritage of shipwrecks has been found to comprise four basic types: [5]
Gender distribution of diver impact on reefs is inconclusive, different studies have produced contradictory findings. [14]
Repetitive contact by divers and their equipment on the benthos is the general mechanism of reef degradation by recreational divers. Factors correlating with frequency of reef contact were found to be: [1]
Observations that experience does not predict frequency of impacts is not necessarily incompatible with findings that practical training reduces frequency of impacts, as experience is not always an indicator of competence.
Fin impacts have been identified as contributing the most to damage to reef biota; erect and branching hard corals are the most sensitive taxon to contact damage on tropical reefs, and the severity of damage is influenced by habitat complexity. [15] This indicates that better diver trim, buoyancy and finning techniques, situational awareness of position relative to the reef, and awareness of the damage done by contact with corals in habitats where close proximity of fins to sensitive organisms is likely, are priorities for reducing damage. Several studies have found that damage to coral reefs by divers can be minimized by modifying the behavior of those divers. [7] Training in low impact diving skills appears to significantly reduce contact with the benthos in divers of all certification and experience levels. This result can be extrapolated to other diving environments as a method to protect the environment and help to make recreational scuba diving more ecologically sustainable, and may enhance the diving experience. [1]
There appears to be little correlation between site topography and coral damage, but damage is related to coral morphology and structural strength. Most damage is to branching species which are inherently weaker against bending loads. [16] [8]
Several studies have found the main reason for contact by inexperienced divers to be poor buoyancy control. [1] Studies on recreational divers on tropical coral reefs have shown that the rate of contact between diver and environment varies significantly between divers who are able to maintain neutral buoyancy and those who are deficient in the skill, with divers who do not maintain neutral buoyancy contacting the reef more often. Briefing divers on the effects of contact with the reef reduced contact in divers with good buoyancy skills, but not in divers who lacked those skills. The problem appears to be one of competence. Without the necessary competence, divers are unable to modify their behaviour appropriately, and cannot produce the skills merely by being made aware of their necessity. The solution to reducing reef contact is in requiring the diver to have the skill before allowing them to dive in the environment where it is needed. [9]
There is evidence that the ability of dive guides to positively influence diver behaviour relating to reef contact is less for larger groups of divers, but the implementation of programmes which focus on dive industry operations can contribute to the reduction of anthropogenic reef damage. [8]
Some MPAs in the Mediterranean have prohibited scuba diving completely, or have restricted it to reefs near the boundaries of the MPA. Others have established diving trails which keep divers away from vulnerable areas. Another conservation strategy identified potentially vulnerable species and based the determination of sustainable numbers of visitors on this. [1]
A 2012 study by Ong and Musa on recreational divers in Malaysia showed that experience was the most important factor in explaining divers’ underwater behaviour, followed by the attitude towards diving and personality type, and that attitude towards the environment partially mediates the influence of experience on underwater behaviour, [4] but Scott-Ireton (2008) found that an awareness of how and why the environment should be protected has more effect than skill competence for motivating divers to conserve their surroundings. [14] Active avoidance of reef contact requires appropriate motivation, and successful avoidance requires appropriate competence.
Entry-level diver training is necessarily focused on diver safety. The training programmes are usually as short as the standards allow, and do not provide more than a basic mention of diver impact on the underwater environment and methods to minimise that impact. There is seldom any actual skill training for anything beyond survival skills and basic buoyancy control. Divers are issued certification for minimum compliance with skills and knowledge essential to their safety, and in some cases may not even meet those standards on certification. The information provided in the training manuals regarding diver ecological impact is not safety critical and consequently the relevant skills and knowledge may not be evaluated or taken into consideration when assessing competence, even when it is sufficient in coverage to be potentially useful. As most recreational divers never take part in further training, and may only dive sporadically, they may lose skills faster than they develop them, and refresher courses to relearn basic safety skills are common. Basic entry-level diver training cannot be a reliable means of ensuring low impact diving, particularly in regions differing significantly from those in which initial training is done. The amount and quality of coverage of information in entry-level training manuals on environmental impact by divers also varies significantly between training providers. [17]
Several researchers have found evidence to indicate that much of the damage to the underwater environment could be avoided by modifying the behaviour of divers by a combination of an education session followed by in-water demonstration, but short pre-dive briefings alone have little effect on contact rates. [4] [14]
Camp and Fraser, 2012, found that divers who had taken part in environmental conservation courses contacted the reef as often as those who did not, but conservation education provided in a dive briefing reduced contacts with the reef, and the depth of conservation education is relevant to its effectiveness. Diver familiarity with the local environment was also mentioned as having an effect on reducing impact frequency. [14]
There are a variety of scuba diving programs that provide instruction into not only effective techniques and appropriate equipment, but also a focus on environmental conservation, particularly preservation of coral reefs. For instance, in the Florida Keys, there are companies which provide education for advanced open-water divers to learn more about the impact of the recreational sport on ocean wildlife, as well as have affiliations with organizations such as the Blue Star Dive Center [18] and the Coral Restoration Foundation. [19] These programs emphasize the importance of divers maintaining sufficient distance between themselves and sea creatures to minimize contamination and preserve the health of the underwater world. [20]
This section needs expansionwith: what divers are taught at entry level. [17] . You can help by adding to it. (June 2023) |
Low impact diving training has been shown to be effective in reducing diver contact. [1]
In 1989, Buoyancy Training Systems International, a company based in Seattle, Washington, became the first organization in the world to create an internationally uniform, training and objective underwater test of skill specifically designed to reduce diver impact upon the marine environment. [21] [22] The curriculum and mobile practice venue, now known as the Diamond Reef System, uses standardised portable reef simulation structures called ‘Diamond Reef Hover Stations' to raise the proficiency and awareness of divers at all stages of diver training including tropical resort acclimation dives. [21] This program remains in use by dive operators world-wide and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. [23]
The specific PADI Low Impact Diver training program takes 2 days and appears to be effective for a large range of pre-existing skill and certification levels. [1] Similar training from other providers should have similar results. Many of the skills are included in technical diver training, particularly cave and wreck diving, [1] where they are also important for safety.
While competence, which is directly associated with training and experience, is fundamentally necessary for low impact diving, attitude towards the environment and personality type appear to influence whether and how the diver applies their competence to moderating ecological impact. [4]
Several methodologies have been developed with the intention of minimising the environmental impact of divers on coral reefs
The number of dives over a time interval that results in an acceptable and stable level of degradation depends on a combination of factors that vary between sites. These include the presence of vulnerable organisms, and the stresses to which they are specifically vulnerable, the level of environmental awareness and responsibility of the divers, the diving skills and situational awareness of the divers, prevalent water conditions during dives, including currents and surge which increase difficulty of positional control, other anthropogenic stressors that may be present, and may combine their effects with diver impact, topographical details which affect diver maneuvering and risk of impact, and the size of the site. Continued periodical re-assessment will generally be necessary, even when there are no obvious large changes to external circumstances. [7] These factors may vary considerably even within a specific ecological zone, and may be expected to be very different between for example, a tropical coral reef dominated by branching stony corals on a gradually sloping bottom with persistent moderate wave action and continuous current, in an area far from major industry, and a high profile granite corestone temperate reef with deep gullies and steep ridges, dominated by kelp, ascidians and echinoderms, and with seasonal variations in prevailing wave direction near a large industrial city. The appropriate equipment and relevant skills will also vary, and unfamiliar rental equipment can require some practice before the diver can use it well, particularly for optimising weighting and trim. Divers in training can not be expected to perform at their best while distracted by learning new skills, and this is also a factor to be considered as a potential stressor if there is no separation between training sites and sites for qualified divers.
Dive sites which are popular with visitors should be zoned as unsuitable for training divers. [24] In order to ensure that the industry engaged with diving tourism does not directly or indirectly threaten the existence of this essential aquatic life, [25] it is necessary that recreational diving service providers uphold proper carrying capacities to reduce overpopulated diving expeditions, and that researchers investigate the actual effects of recreational diving at places where there are large numbers of divers. [26]
Recreational diver activities with an overall positive impact on the environment may include citizen science reef monitoring by volunteer recreational divers and species observation reports by underwater photographers, economic pressure by diving tourists to conserve desirable diving conditions, and cleanup of plastic and other undesirable debris by divers. Most of the citizen science projects require some level of long term commitment, including training, and reasonably frequent activity to maintain skills, and are therefore more suitable for local residents than for tourists.
Marine conservation projects using volunteer recreational divers:
Observational record databases for science and conservation:
This section needs expansionwith: more details on listed activities, and more activities. You can help by adding to it. (January 2021) |
Wreck diving is recreational diving where the wreckage of ships, aircraft and other artificial structures are explored. The term is used mainly by recreational and technical divers. Professional divers, when diving on a shipwreck, generally refer to the specific task, such as salvage work, accident investigation or archaeological survey. Although most wreck dive sites are at shipwrecks, there is an increasing trend to scuttle retired ships to create artificial reef sites. Diving to crashed aircraft can also be considered wreck diving. The recreation of wreck diving makes no distinction as to how the vessel ended up on the bottom.
Diving activities are the things people do while diving underwater. People may dive for various reasons, both personal and professional. While a newly qualified recreational diver may dive purely for the experience of diving, most divers have some additional reason for being underwater. Recreational diving is purely for enjoyment and has several specialisations and technical disciplines to provide more scope for varied activities for which specialist training can be offered, such as cave diving, wreck diving, ice diving and deep diving. Several underwater sports are available for exercise and competition.
Recreational diving or sport diving is diving for the purpose of leisure and enjoyment, usually when using scuba equipment. The term "recreational diving" may also be used in contradistinction to "technical diving", a more demanding aspect of recreational diving which requires more training and experience to develop the competence to reliably manage more complex equipment in the more hazardous conditions associated with the disciplines. Breath-hold diving for recreation also fits into the broader scope of the term, but this article covers the commonly used meaning of scuba diving for recreational purposes, where the diver is not constrained from making a direct near-vertical ascent to the surface at any point during the dive, and risk is considered low.
Scuba diving is a mode of underwater diving whereby divers use breathing equipment that is completely independent of a surface breathing gas supply, and therefore has a limited but variable endurance. The name scuba is an anacronym for "Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus" and was coined by Christian J. Lambertsen in a patent submitted in 1952. Scuba divers carry their own source of breathing gas, usually compressed air, affording them greater independence and movement than surface-supplied divers, and more time underwater than free divers. Although the use of compressed air is common, a gas blend with a higher oxygen content, known as enriched air or nitrox, has become popular due to the reduced nitrogen intake during long or repetitive dives. Also, breathing gas diluted with helium may be used to reduce the effects of nitrogen narcosis during deeper dives.
Underwater diving, as a human activity, is the practice of descending below the water's surface to interact with the environment. It is also often referred to as diving, an ambiguous term with several possible meanings, depending on context. Immersion in water and exposure to high ambient pressure have physiological effects that limit the depths and duration possible in ambient pressure diving. Humans are not physiologically and anatomically well-adapted to the environmental conditions of diving, and various equipment has been developed to extend the depth and duration of human dives, and allow different types of work to be done.
Scientific diving is the use of underwater diving techniques by scientists to perform work underwater in the direct pursuit of scientific knowledge. The legal definition of scientific diving varies by jurisdiction. Scientific divers are normally qualified scientists first and divers second, who use diving equipment and techniques as their way to get to the location of their fieldwork. The direct observation and manipulation of marine habitats afforded to scuba-equipped scientists have transformed the marine sciences generally, and marine biology and marine chemistry in particular. Underwater archeology and geology are other examples of sciences pursued underwater. Some scientific diving is carried out by universities in support of undergraduate or postgraduate research programs, and government bodies such as the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the UK Environment Agency carry out scientific diving to recover samples of water, marine organisms and sea, lake or riverbed material to examine for signs of pollution.
Sinking ships for wreck diving sites is the practice of scuttling old ships to produce artificial reefs suitable for wreck diving, to benefit from commercial revenues from recreational diving of the shipwreck, or to produce a diver training site.
Coral reef protection is the process of modifying human activities to avoid damage to healthy coral reefs and to help damaged reefs recover. The key strategies used in reef protection include defining measurable goals and introducing active management and community involvement to reduce stressors that damage reef health. One management technique is to create Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) that directly limit human activities such as fishing.
Recreational dive sites are specific places that recreational scuba divers go to enjoy the underwater environment or for training purposes. They include technical diving sites beyond the range generally accepted for recreational diving. In this context all diving done for recreational purposes is included. Professional diving tends to be done where the job is, and with the exception of diver training and leading groups of recreational divers, does not generally occur at specific sites chosen for their easy access, pleasant conditions or interesting features.
Diver training is the set of processes through which a person learns the necessary and desirable skills to safely dive underwater within the scope of the diver training standard relevant to the specific training programme. Most diver training follows procedures and schedules laid down in the associated training standard, in a formal training programme, and includes relevant foundational knowledge of the underlying theory, including some basic physics, physiology and environmental information, practical skills training in the selection and safe use of the associated equipment in the specified underwater environment, and assessment of the required skills and knowledge deemed necessary by the certification agency to allow the newly certified diver to dive within the specified range of conditions at an acceptable level of risk. Recognition of prior learning is allowed in some training standards.
Scuba skills are skills required to dive safely using self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, known as a scuba set. Most of these skills are relevant to both open-circuit scuba and rebreather scuba, and many also apply to surface-supplied diving. Some scuba skills, which are critical to divers' safety, may require more practice than standard recreational training provides to achieve reliable competence.
Diamond Reef System, including each individual Hover Station and the new Multi-Portal System, are trademarked, skill evaluation and safety-based diving curriculums that utilize the world's first portable, collapsible underwater obstacle course to simulate fragile reef or dive wreck structure for diver buoyancy skill and underwater photography training. A form of scuba Gymkhana, the program was designed by Pete Wallingford in 1988 to educate scuba instructors and scuba divers on how to safely teach and promote situational awareness, proper body positioning and safe interaction with coral reefs, fragile marine ecosystems and shipwrecks. The program was adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, dive store operators and dive resort/charter operators worldwide.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to underwater diving:
The science of underwater diving includes those concepts which are useful for understanding the underwater environment in which diving takes place, and its influence on the diver. It includes aspects of physics, physiology and oceanography. The practice of scientific work while diving is known as Scientific diving. These topics are covered to a greater or lesser extent in diver training programs, on the principle that understanding the concepts may allow the diver to avoid problems and deal with them more effectively when they cannot be avoided.
Scuba diving tourism is the industry based on servicing the requirements of recreational divers at destinations other than where they live. It includes aspects of training, equipment sales, rental and service, guided experiences and environmental tourism.
Low impact diving is recreational scuba diving that is intended to minimise environmental impact by using techniques and procedures that reduce the adverse effects on the environment to the minimum that is reasonably practicable for the situation. To a large extent this is achieved by avoiding contact with sensitive reef life, but it also applies to diving on historical wrecks and in caves with delicate rock formations. It is in the interests of diving tourism service providers to help protect the condition of the dive sites on which their businesses rely. They can contribute by encouraging and teaching low impact diving and following best-practice procedures for diving in sensitive areas. Low impact diving training has been shown to be effective in reducing diver contact with the bottom, the most common cause of reef damage.