In a travel press news, Scientists were reported to discover the benign use of garden sprinklers in conserving one of Australia’s great tourism icons – the Great Barrier Reef. ABC report said that the discovery came out after Queensland marine scientists and Quicksilver Cruises carefully examined whether sprinklers could protect the reef from coral bleaching.
Bleaching normally takes place when high levels of light cause algae that fuel the deterioration of the coral.
According to Quicksilver spokesman Philip Laycock, “solar-powered sprinklers are less unsightly than shade cloth that has already been trialled and would be mounted onto floats above reefs to see if they can reduce light penetrationâ€.
â€Once we get a bit of wave action on the surface we reflect a lot more sunshine, but a very calm ocean will let about 90 percent of sunshine throughâ€, Laycock emphasized.
Mr Laycock further explained that similar experiments in the Red Sea have shown that sprinklers can reduce light penetration by 40 percent.
