Benthic Surveys in Faga'alu, American Samoa since 2012: benthic images collected during belt transect surveys in 2012, 2015, 2020

The data described herein are part of a NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) funded project aimed establishing a baseline and assessing the status and trends for coral demographics and benthic cover and composition via Rapid Ecological Assessment (REA) surveys conducted by the NOAA Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD) -former Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP), at Faga'alu Bay, Tutuila, American Samoa in 2012, 2015, and 2020.

Photoquadrat benthic images were collected in 2012, 2015, and 2020 only, via belt transect surveys of coral demography according to protocols established by ESD in 2012 and by the NOAA National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) in 2015.

In 2012 through 2015, the survey implemented a two-stage stratified random sampling (StRS) design to assess the Faga'alu benthic coral reef community, and a one-stage StRS design in 2020. The survey domain encompassed the majority of the mapped area of reef and hard bottom habitats in the 0–30 m depth range. The stratification scheme included cardinal position (i.e., north and south), reef zone (i.e., backreef and forereef), and depth (i.e., shallow: >0–6 m and mid-depth: >6–18 m). Sampling effort allocation was determined based on strata area and sites randomly located within strata. The StRS design effectively reduces estimate variance through stratification using environmental covariates and by sampling more sites rather than more transects per site. Therefore, site-to-site comparisons should proceed with caution.

Data can be accessed online via the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Ocean Archive, accession #0146682. The 2015 and 2020 photos have been analyzed for benthic cover (documented separately).

Data from coral demographic surveys in 2012, 2013, 2015, and 2020, in addition benthic cover data from line-point intercept surveys in 2012 were also collected ESD and are documented separately.