Video transects of coral reefs on the west coast of the island of Hawaii collected from 2017-02-03 to 2017-02-08 (NCEI Accession 0172858)

This data set contains video transects of coral reefs on the west coast of the island of Hawaii collected during February of 2017. The videos are in MP4 format and include audio of the diver's comments noting observations of fish and coral species that were observed throughout the dive.

To accomplish our goal of long-term monitoring of Hawaii coral reef health, the Seattle Aquarium's life sciences department began annually monitoring tropical reef fish abundance in both marine-protected and non-protected reef systems in 2009. We document changes in fish abundance and diversity over time to better understand shifting baselines. Understanding these changes is critical to forming policies that effectively manage reef communities in this fragile ecosystem. Our method is diver-based underwater video documentation along transects similar to those established in the late 1990s and early 2000's by Drs. Brian Tissot and Bill Walsh (Tissot and Hallacher 2003 and Tissot, Walsh and Hallacher 2004). Video-based transects allow repeatable annual measurements of fish diversity and abundance and coral cover to determine significant changes in species diversity or abundance (termed shifting baselines) with minimal disturbance in the area. In addition it creates a permanent document that can be viewed over and over to be used by future researchers and resource managers. We count all fish and percent coral cover observed on the video at seven sites ranging from Kona in the south to North Kohala in the north in both protected and non-protected areas.