A new estimate of global reefal carbonate production including the fore-reefs

Reefal carbonate production is an important component of the carbon cycle. In this paper, the methods for assessing this production are compared. Data on framework-dominated and biodetritus-dominated fore-reefs are integrated for new estimates of the global reef area (304,000-345,000 km(2)), of the production in reef-flat to fore-reef transects (average 0.9-2.7 kg m(-2) year(-1)), and of the production in the world's reefs (0.65-0.83 Gt year(-1)). These estimates are the first to incorporate the recently published global reef-flat area and to integrate fore-reef data from all reef provinces. The amount of reefal carbonate production at the local, regional, and even more at the global scale remains poorly constrained because of few data. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.