Reefs for the future: Resilience of coral reefs in the main Hawaiian Islands

Description

Declining health of coral reef ecosystems led scientists to search for factors that support reef resilience: the ability of reefs to resist and recover from environmental disturbance. Scientists recently identified 11 measurable factors that affect the resilience of coral reefs (McClanahan et al., 2012). Reef resilience factors include characteristics of the coral assemblage, populations of fish that live on the reef, land use practices, and water temperature variability. These factors were used by NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) to conduct a quantitative assessment of the resilience potential of reefs across the main Hawaiian Islands (MHI).

Locations of Rapid Ecological Assessment (REA) surveys conducted by NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) from 2010 to 2013 were used to designate study units called "georegions". Watersheds upstream of georegions were then grouped to delineate the area that could affect adjacent reefs through pollution, runoff, and sedimentation. REA surveys provided data to evaluate biological/ecological resilience factors, and external data sources were used to inform physical and environmental factors not directly measured by CREP. Five of the resilience factors can be directly influenced by local management. Data for each factor was compiled, normalized, and averaged to produce a composite resilience score for each georegion.

In all, twenty-nine study areas were analyzed across the MHI. Lowest composite resilience scores were earned by reefs near densely populated areas on O`ahu, while highest scores were earned near relatively sparsely populated areas of other islands. The reef resilience framework data package described herein comprises the original data sources used in this analysis, the intermediary and final data resulting from the analysis, the process documentation, and the 2-page PIFSC Special Publication published in 2014 (SP-15-001).

Data can be accessed via the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Ocean Archive, accession #0128219.

Resources

Name Format Description Link
Citation URL HTML Kido 2006 full text not available online, but an interactive map of the Watershed Health Index and abstract are available through the listed website. Open resource
Annotated list of metrics and associated files.pdf Unknown Data dictionary: Annotated list of metrics and associated files for the Reef Resilience data package. Purpose: This document describes the entire contents of the Reef Resilience data package, including the 2-page publication, CSV files, and GIS shapefiles. Also described is each column and it's domain values contained in the CSV files and shapefiles. Open resource
https://accession.nodc.noaa.gov/0128219 Unknown The Reef Resilience data package archived at the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Ocean Archive includes the original data sources used in the analysis, the intermediary and final data resulting from the analysis, the process documentation, and the 2-page PIFSC Special Publication published in 2014 (SP-15-001). NOAA NCEI Accession #0128219. Open resource
Final_summary_2_pp.pdf Unknown PIFSC. 2014. Reefs for the future: Resilience of coral reefs in the main Hawaiian Islands. NOAA Fisheries Pacific Science Center, PIFSC Special Publication, SP-15-001, 2p. Posted February 3, 2015. Open resource
Citation URL Unknown NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center Blog. Reefs for the future: Resilience of coral reefs in the main Hawaiian Islands. Posted Feb 5, 2015. Open resource
Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Keywords Unknown The information provided on this page seeks to define how the GCMD Keywords are structured, used and accessed. It also provides information on how users can participate in the further development of the keywords. Open resource
Full Metadata Record Unknown View the complete metadata record on InPort for more information about this dataset. Open resource
NOAA Data Management Plan (DMP) PDF NOAA Data Management Plan for this record on InPort. Open resource
Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center Website Unknown Pacific Island Fisheries Science Center homepage Open resource
Citation URL PDF PIFSC. 2014. Reefs for the future: Resilience of coral reefs in the main Hawaiian Islands. NOAA Fisheries Pacific Science Center, PIFSC Special Publication, SP-15-001, 2p. Posted February 3, 2015. Open resource

Tags

Topics

Categories