Building an artificial reef to protect marine life

An artificial reef is a manmade underwater structure, typically built to promote and enhance marine life. It generally provides hard surfaces onto which algae and invertebrates such as barnacles, corals, and oysters attach themselves. The accumulation of such attached marine life in turn provides intricate structures and food for assemblages of fish.

Artificial reef blocks

Placing the reef blocks

Drilled reef blocks

Algae growth on the reef

The Mumbai Coastal Road project team in collaboration with Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai, Mangrove Cell, Mumbai, and NIO (National Institute of Oceanography), Mumbai, are building an artificial reef as suggested by CRZ NOC, to enhance the coastal and marine biodiversity along the Mumbai coastline beside which the Coastal Road is being constructed.

Steps to build an artificial reef

Select technically suitable locations – in this case the toe of the sea wall
Shift blocks to the location with help of cranes
Drill on rock to tie the artificial reef blocks with the existing rock
Monitor regularly for ecological growth

Building the reef

“To begin, a team from NIO under Dr Sabyasachi Sautya chose 4 suitable locations in our project – 3 in Package 1 and one in Package 4 – where they installed artificial concrete reef blocks of various shapes, admixtures and raw materials to study the effectiveness and choose the best combination,” informs Head – EHS Compliance, G Divakar.

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To begin, a team from NIO under Dr Sabyasachi Sautya chose 4 suitable locations in our project – 3 in Package 1 and one in Package 4 – where they installed artificial concrete reef blocks of various shapes, admixtures and raw materials to study the effectiveness and choose the best combination.

G Divakar

Head – EHS Compliance

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Thereafter, the artificial reefs were fixed to the seawall toe area which is in the intertidal zone so that the blocks are exposed to sunlight during low tide and submerged under water during high tide.

Further study on the installed artificial reefs will be carried out on monthly basis by NIO.