Transplantation of Enhalus acoroides on a sedimentary beach in Ambon Bay

Coastal development in Ambon Bay has been contributing to coastal ecosystem degradations in recent years. One of the negative effect was the over sedimentation that changes the landscape of coastal ecosystem such as seagrass beds. These changes have made this ecosystem lost some of its functions especially as the habitat for other biotas, because the vegetation was been buried and reduced in density. So, on December 2015, a rehabilitation effort has done at Kate-kate Beach with transplantation techniques of Enhalus acoroides. After 3-11 months of observation, it was noticed that only the transplants in the deeper area were survived, contrary, the transplants in exposed and dry area during low tide were not survived. Overall, the survival rate of the transplantation project was 49,73 persen, because the transplants need enough submerged condition to support their lives. The study recommend that to rehabilitate a damaged seagrass beds due to the over sedimentation, we have to remove the sediment until certain depth during low tide to ensure the transplants were submerged in seawater. On top of that, the local government have to reduce the sedimentation rate from land because over sedimentation will make the beach profile become too shallow and exposed during the low tide. Global Colloquium on GeoSciences and Engineering 2017