Editing Sediment (section)

===Coastal development and sedimentation near coral reefs===

Watershed development near coral reefs is a primary cause of sediment-related coral stress. The stripping of natural vegetation in the watershed for development exposes soil to increased wind and rainfall and, as a result, can cause exposed sediment to become more susceptible to erosion and delivery to the marine environment during rainfall events. Sediment can negatively affect corals in many ways, such as by physically smothering them, abrading their surfaces, causing corals to expend energy during sediment removal, and causing algal blooms that can ultimately lead to less space on the seafloor where juvenile corals (polyps) can settle.

When sediments are introduced into the coastal regions of the ocean, the proportion of land, marine, and organic-derived sediment that characterizes the seafloor near sources of sediment output is altered. In addition, because the source of sediment (i.e., land, ocean, or organically) is often correlated with how coarse or fine sediment grain sizes that characterize an area are on average, grain size distribution of sediment will shift according to the relative input of land (typically fine), marine (typically coarse), and organically-derived (variable with age) sediment.  These alterations in marine sediment characterize the amount of sediment suspended in the water column at any given time and sediment-related coral stress.
<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Risk |first1=Michael J |title=Assessing the effects of sediments and nutrients on coral reefs |journal=Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability |date=April 2014 |volume=7 |pages=108–117 |doi=10.1016/j.cosust.2014.01.003|bibcode=2014COES....7..108R }}</ref>