Benthic images collected at coral reef sites in Timor-Leste from 2012-2014

Photographs of the seafloor were collected during benthic photo-quadrat surveys conducted by the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) in hard bottom shallow water (< 15 m) habitats in Timor-Leste. Photographs were collected along transects at fixed climate survey sites in October 2012 and September-October 2014 (10 sites and 8 sites, respectively), and during reef fish surveys surveys at 150 sites that were selected using a stratified random sampling design in June 2013.

Climate sites were established by CREP to establish ecological baselines for climate change by measuring multiple features of the coral reef environment (in addition to the data described herein) over time. The reef fish surveys were conducted to generate baseline data on the nearshore coral reef fish assemblages and associated benthic communities around Timor-Leste's north coast and Atauro Island. The photographs can be accessed online via the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Ocean Archive.

The imagery from 2013 and 2014 has been quantitatively analyzed using image analysis software to derive an estimate of percent benthic cover. The benthic cover data, and the associated reef fish survey data and parameters measured to establish ecological baselines for climate change are documented separately.

In 2011, NOAA and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Timor-Leste Mission formed a 5-year bi-lateral partnership agreement from 2012 to 2016, in support of the Government of Timor-Leste—particularly the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF)—by addressing significant information gaps in their nearshore marine ecosystems. Specifically, MAF asked NOAA to address the following questions:

1. Where are the nearshore marine resources?

2. What are the nearshore marine resources?

3. How are they changing over time and what threats are potentially causing these changes?

4. What approaches are needed to manage and conserve the nearshore marine resources?

With financial support from USAID and in-kind support from the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP), the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (NOAA-CREP) conducted baseline ecosystem assessment surveys to inform ecosystem-based management planning in Timor-Leste. The primary activities conducted by NOAA to answer these questions included:

1. satellite mapping of nearshore habitats,

2. conducting coral reef ecosystem assessments,

3. establishing ecological baselines for climate change, and

4. building management capacity by developing a spatial data framework

The benthic images described herein resulted from the second and third activities to conduct coral reef ecosystem assessments (2013) and establish ecological baselines for climate change (2012 and 2014).

Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center. 2017. Interdisciplinary baseline ecosystem assessment surveys to inform ecosystem-based management planning in Timor-Leste: Final Report. Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, PIFSC Special Publication, SP-17-002, 234 p. https://doi.org/10.7289/V5/SP-PIFSC-17-002.

As the survey methods described and used herein are also implemented as part of the NOAA Pacific Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program (Pacific RAMP)—an ecosystem-scale interdisciplinary coral reef monitoring program—the data from Timor-Leste are directly comparable to and informed by data collected by NOAA-CREP throughout the U.S. Pacific Islands and Territories. Furthermore, the methods used for establishing ecological baselines for climate change in Timor-Leste (Chapter 4) are being adopted and implemented at 21 sites across eight member states of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission within the Western Pacific (WESTPAC) region. These data provide a foundation for comparing the ecological baselines under current and future stresses associated with climate change in the Coral Triangle region.

Raw data include approximately 30 benthic photographs per survey site. Included in the archive package is a list of survey sites, including site id, location (latitude/longitude), and survey date, where photoquads were collected. The file naming convention for each photo/image is [SITE]_[YEAR]_[TRANSECT]_[PHOTO_NUMBER].JPG (for example: KOA-02_2015_A_01.JPG).

While every effort has been made to ensure that these data are accurate and reliable within the limits of the current state of the art, NOAA cannot assume liability for any damages caused by errors or omissions in the data, nor as a result of the failure of the data to function on a particular system. NOAA makes no warranty, expressed or implied, nor does the fact of distribution constitute such a warranty.

Timor-Leste

Not applicable

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NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) Data Sharing Recommendations, version 9.0 updated August 12, 2015:

CREP welcomes the opportunity to collaborate on research issues contributing to the scientific basis for better management of marine ecosystems. CREP has a very diverse set of field activities that generates large volumes of data using an array of data collection protocols.

The following recommendations are for your consideration as you use this data:

1) Data analyses should take all field exigencies into account. The most effective way to do this would be active collaboration with CREP principal investigators.

2) In all presentations, product releases, or publications using data generated by CREP, proper acknowledgement of both CREP and the individuals responsible for data collection is expected. Citing the DOI (if available) is preferred, a non-DOI example is listed below.

3) If you collect or generate data for the same study areas, CREP requests that you share relevant information on complimentary data collections.

4) Those receiving data are strongly urged to inform the CREP Data Management Team of any errors and discrepancies that are discovered during the course of using these data. They are further urged to bring to the attention of the Team all problems and difficulties encountered in using these data. This information is necessary in order to improve the collections and to facilitate more efficient and economical data processing and retrieval. The users are asked to supply copies of any missing data that may be located, and to provide information as to significant subsets and special aggregations of data that are developed in using the material provided.

Example citation:

"This publication makes use of data products provided by the Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP), Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), with funding support from the United States Agency for International Development. The analysis and interpretations presented here are solely that of the current authors.”

Data can be accessed online via the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Ocean Archive.

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Please cite NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) when using the data.

Suggested citation:

Coral Reef Ecosystem Program; Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (2017). Benthic images collected at coral reef sites in Timor-Leste from 2012-2014. NOAA's National Center for Environmental Information, https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/46160

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PIFSC network/file system:

2012: \\PICMAKAI\OPTICAL\OPTICAL\CT\2012\TIM\REA\CLIMATE\

2013: \\PICMAKAI\OPTICAL\OPTICAL\CT\2013\TIM\REA\FISH\

2014: \\PICMAKAI\OPTICAL\OPTICAL\CT\2014\TIM\REA\CLIMATE\

Handheld GPS units were used to locate random sites and to mark site locations.

Image data include ~30 benthic photographs per survey site from surveys in all years. The fish team conducts the photoquadrat surveys along one 30 m transect. Climate site surveys in 2012 were along 2 transects and along 1 transect in 2014. Therefore, the site level image data contain one or two transects per survey, depending on the year. Appropriate site level image grouping should include all 30 images.

Only shallow water (0 to 18 meter depth range) hard-bottom habitats were surveyed.

Survey methods were consistent across all sites within the same year.

Benthic images and the file structure are quality controlled by CREP personnel before they are migrated and integrated into CREP's master optical directory on the PIFSC network. The photos are reviewed by the diver for accuracy and usability. The data management team also uses a optical validation script to re-name photos and enforce several validation checks.

NOAA IRC and NOAA Fisheries ITS resources and assets.

Benthic photographs were collected for survey sites at pre-defined points along the transect. The photos are collected for the purpose of deriving benthic cover percentages using image analysis software, though, not all photo sets are analyzed. In the case where photographs were collected during both the initial deployment (2012) and final recovery missions (2014), typically only the most recent set of photographs are analyzed for benthic cover. This is true for the climate sites in Timor-Leste; the 2012 images were not analyzed.