Data Management Plan

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.

Main Hawaiian Islands

Lineage Statement:
The principal analytical task of this project was to calculate eleven metrics of "reef resilience" as identified by McClanahan et al. (2012). These metrics account for various aspects of the coral reef ecosystem, and are derived from several data streams, as described in the process steps.

Process Steps:

• The first task was to identify and define zones of interest, hereafter known as "georegions." Georegions were defined based on locations of Rapid Ecological Assessment (REA) surveys. REA surveys include surveys of fish and corals, and are conducted by the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) at the Pacific Islands Fishery Science Center on a triennial basis as part of the Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program (RAMP). Surveys were grouped based on proximity and shared exposure to wind and wave conditions.
• The basis of the pollution metric is the Watershed Health Index (Kido 2006), which has been calculated for watersheds throughout the Main Hawaiian Islands (MHI) and is available online (http://hbmpweb.pbrc.hawaii.edu:8000/WHI/WHI.html). We used ArcGIS to combine this information by merging watersheds associated with each georegion and calculating a weighted mean WHI by area. (Citation: Kido MH (2006) A GIS-based Watershed Health Index for the State of Hawaii. Technical Report to the Hawaii Department of Health, Environmental Health Administration - Environmental Planning Office, July 2006.)
• The sedimentation metric is based on precipitation that falls on the watersheds associated with each georegion. A "precipitation index" was derived based on interpolated rainfall information from the Rainfall Atlas of Hawai`i (Giambelluca et al. 2013). This information is available at http://rainfall.geography.hawaii.edu/downloads.html. Rainfall was scaled by the coastline of each georegion. (Citation: Giambelluca TW, Chen Q, Frazier AG, Price JP, Chen Y-L, Chu P-S, Eischeid JK, Delparte DM (2013) Online Rainfall Atlas of Hawai`i. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 94: 313-316, doi: 10.1175/BAMS-D-11-00228.1.)
• The herbivore biomass metric was derived from data from NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) Rapid Ecological Assessment (REA) fish surveys. Mean herbivore biomass for each georegion, as well as all subsequently described metrics based on data from REA surveys, were calculated based on a weighted average of reef area in three depth zones (0-6 meters, 6-18 meters, 18-30 meters). (Citation: Ayotte P, McCoy K, Williams I, Zamzow J. 2011. Coral Reef Ecosystem Division standard operating procedures: data collection for Rapid Ecological Assessment fish surveys. Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center Administrative Report H-11-08, 24 p.)
• The macroalgal cover metric was derived from analysis of digital images of the benthos (photoquadrats) from NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) Rapid Ecological Assessment (REA) fish and coral surveys. (Citation: NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) Benthic Image Analysis Standard Operating Procedures. Unpublished methods documented on the NOAA Wiki and unofficially available on the CoRIS website at http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/coris/data/NOAA/nmfs/810_Reef_Resilience/SOP_BenthicImageAnalysis_v2_2014_12_04.pdf)
• Metrics for coral diversity, coral recruitment, physical impacts to coral, and disease prevalence were calculated from data gathered by NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) Rapid Ecological Assessment (REA) benthic surveys. (Citation: "Ecological Assessment of Coral." Coral Reef Ecosystem Program. Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, n.d. Web. <http://www.pifsc.noaa.gov/cred/corals.php>)
• The bleaching resistance metric was calculated based on the percent corals of a given species found in georegions, scaled by their sensitivity to bleaching as determined by observations of corals during a bleaching event.
• The fishing pressure metric was derived from multiple data sources. The proximity of human population was the primary driver, and was scaled by the percentage of households that fish (Allen and Bartlett 2008) and the percentage of habitat that is protected from fishing in a form of marine protected area designated by the State of Hawaii as a "Marine Life Conservation District." U.S. Census data was used to estimate mean population within 10 kilometers of reef in each georegion, results of a social science study done by Allen and Bartlett (2008) were used to identify the percentage of households that fish, and ArcGIS was used to estimate percentage of shallow-water habitat protected from fishing. (Citation: Allen SD, Bartlett N. 2008. Hawaii Marine Recreational Fisheries Survey. How analysis of raw catch data can benefit regional fisheries management and how catch estimates are developed: An example using 2003 data. Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center Administrative Report H-08-04, 33 p. + Appendices.)
• The Sea Surface Temperature (SST) variability metric was derived from Pathfinder v5.2 ~4 kilometer (1/24 degrees) daily SST data for the period 1985-2012, provided by the Group for High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (GHRSST) and the U.S. National Oceanographic Data Center. The Pathfinder project was supported in part by a grant from the NOAA Climate Data Record (CDR) Program for satellites. Scott Heron created derived data sets based on these data under a NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) grant (Heron-786), and these derived data sets were used as the basis of the SST variability metric. Based on discussions with Heron, the number of significant thermal events (defined as a period where a reef area experienced 4 consecutive degree heating weeks) and the interannual variability (standard deviation) of the climactically warmest month were combined to calculate the SST variability metric. Additional information about thermal history products is available at the Coral Reef Watch website (http://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/thermal_history/th_index.php).

With some datasets, two different individuals generated summary statistics that were verified against each other. In other cases, the analysis was run two different ways or two different times and results were cross-checked. "Sanity checks" were also performed to evaluate if the results make sense and are logical.

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

NOAA IRC and NOAA Fisheries ITS resources and assets.