Roatan Research Project Overview

On the Honduran island of Roatán, a rapidly growing tourism industry has instigated the widespread conversion of land from forests, mangroves, and grazing land to resorts, vacation houses, and housing for people hoping to take advantage of the thriving economy. Roatán’s extensive fringing coral reefs have made the island a premier SCUBA diving destination. As a result of the reef’s attraction, Roatán has experienced a dramatic growth in the number of visitors, rising from 900 in 1969 to approximately 40,000 in 1994. Tourism has dramatically changed the island’s land use patterns. New roads, houses, resorts, and a modern airport have been built to accommodate both the increased number of tourists and the booming local population. Over the past five years, several real estate agencies have fueled this land conversion by facilitating the sale of land to North American and European investors. Development, however, is occurring without a viable management plan. The environmental damage caused by unplanned development raises serious questions about the sustainability of nature-based tourism on the island.

In 1993, Linwood Pendleton (Ph.D. 1996) and Associate Professor Gaboury Benoit from Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies began a program to study the impact of land use and land conversion on the quality of Roatán’s near-shore waters and the health of its coral reefs. In order to teach the skills needed to conduct such research, they developed a course entitled Tropical Coastal Watersheds: Science and Policy. The course centers on a week-long trip to Roatán during which the students collect data on various environmental parameters associated with specific watersheds across the island. The course has been taught since 1993, and the information collected so far has come to form the basis of a database containing information on the condition of the environment on Roatán.

An effort is currently under way to strengthen the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies’ research program on Roatán. Two changes are occurring: Dr. Benoit is restructuring the course in order to emphasize the natural sciences, and graduate students are conducting independent research on the island. Scott Rehmus (M.F.S 1997) and Eva Garen (M.E.S 1997) conducted research on Roatán during the summer of 1996, and their work has provided information that has helped establish the research agenda for the years to come.

The overall goal of the research program is to continue developing the long-term database of information associated with designated watershed study areas. For each watershed, data is collected in four primary subject areas: land cover and land use, erosion and sediment, water quality and pollution, and coral reef analysis. Following is a brief description of the on-going or planned research.

Land cover and land use: we are creating maps of land cover and land use by analyzing an array of remote sensing data including satellite images and aerial photographs. These maps will quantify the extent of development and will help in understanding how land use patterns have changed over time.

Erosion and sediment: we are analyzing soil and sediment samples for atmospherically-delivered radionuclides such as cesium-137. Radionuclide counts can be used to calculate erosion and sedimentation rates as well as to assist in developing a total erosion budgets for each watershed and its associated embayment.

Water quality and pollution: we are measuring a suite of water quality parameters including conventional pollutants such as nutrients, toxic contaminants such as heavy metals, and bacteria such as coliform. In addition, we are studying the history of pollution through analysis of pollutants trapped in cores taken from coral heads and embayment sediments.

Coral reef analysis: we are quantifying the diversity and density of corals growing in proximity to our study watersheds as well as analyzing coral head cores in order to estimate growth rates and bioaccumulation of pollutants.

The primary purpose of this web site is to record the activities of Yale graduate students and faculty conducting research on Roatan. Because different groups of researchers will be collecting data and information over many years, the potential exists for the accumulated knowledge to be lost between research trips/groups. This web site will serve as the "institutional memory" of the research program. The site is intended both to limit the amount of knowledge lost between research groups and to act as a primer to teach graduate students about the island and the status of our research.

This web site contains a general description of each component of the project and the current status of the research efforts. In addition, links provide access to pages which provide details on the methodologies used, logistical issues of conducting research on Roatan, and other relevant topics. The research has a strong visual component, and thus some of the web pages may take longer than desired to download. Because of the nature of the project, this site will always be "under construction."

We would greatly appreciate any comments or feedback on this web site or the project. Please contact us.