What is the Great Barrier Reef a barrier to?

The Great Barrier Reef is the longest and largest reef complex in the world. It is made entirely of organisms and their remains. Billions of coral polyps and their skeletal remains from the building blocks of the reef, which supports a large variety of biodiversity within its coral ecosystems.

The Reef acts as a barrier capable of reducing the impact of cyclones, tropical storms, and tsunamis in the coastal regions. It is the biggest reef in the world, and it consists of thousands of individual reefs, hundreds of islands, and thousands of different plant, bird, and marine life.

The Great Barrier Reef is the world's biggest coral reef system made out of more than 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands extending for more than 2,300 kilometers (1,400 mi) over a zone of around 344,400 square kilometers (133,000 sq mi). The reef is situated in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia.

A huge piece of the reef is secured by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Stop, which confines the effect of human utilize, for example, angling and tourism. Other natural pressures on the reef and its ecosystem incorporate runoff, climate change joined by mass coral dying, and cyclic populace flare-ups of the crown-of-thistles starfish.

As per an investigation distributed in October 2012 by the Procedures of the National Academy of Sciences, the reef has lost the greater part its coral cover since 1985.