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National Coral Reef Monitoring Program: Benthic Cover Derived from Analysis of Benthic Images Collected for Climate Stations across the Hawaiian Archipelago since 2013

Published by Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce | Catalog Last Checked: August 02, 2026 at 11:21 PM | Dataset Last Updated: January 01, 2021 at 12:00 AM
This data has been combined into a US Pacific-wide InPort record: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/78600. The data described here result from benthic photo-quadrat surveys conducted along transects at climate stations and permanent sites identified by the Ocean and Climate Change team across the Hawaiian archipelago since 2013 . Benthic habitat imagery were quantitatively analyzed using Coral Point Count with Excel extensions (CPCe; Kohler and Gill, 2006) software from 2010-2014 and a web-based annotation tool called CoralNet (Beijbom et al. 2016) from 2015 to present. In general, images are analyzed to produce three functional group levels of benthic cover: Tier 1 (e.g., hard coral, soft coral, macroalgae, turf algae, etc.), Tier 2 (e.g., Hard Coral = massive, branching, foliose, encrusting, etc.; Macroalgae = upright macroalgae, encrusting macroalgae, bluegreen macroalgae, and Halimeda, etc.), and Tier 3 (e.g., Hard Coral = Astreopora sp, Favia sp, Pocillopora, etc.; Macroalgae = Caulerpa sp, Dictyosphaeria sp, Padina sp, etc.). Climate stations are 3-4 sites per island that were selected in a stratified random fashion to be roughly equally spaced around the island, along the 15 m contour, on hard bottom, and at least 1 km away from a river mouth or embayment. Once selected we assess multiple features of the coral reef environment including in-situ temperature (STR), seawater carbonate, net carbonate accretion (CAU), and bioerosion (BMU). In 2013 and 2016, cryptobiota diversity (ARMS) was also assessed. These data can be accessed online via the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Ocean Archive.

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