NCRMP and related PIFSC surveys: Statistical Summary of Key Environmental Variables at Coral Reef Survey Sites across the Pacific Ocean from 2000 to 2020

The Environmental Data Summary (EDS) tool was developed by scientists of the Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD) at the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC). The survey data utilized in tool development was funded by the National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) as well as other related projects including the Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI) and USAID. The EDS is an advanced environmental data summary tool that gives users a simple, consistent way to enhance in situ survey data with external environmental data. The EDS is written in R and provides users an interface to NOAA CoastWatch and OceanWatch datasets through the ERDDAP server protocol. The oceanographic parameters involved in this tool include chlorophyll A, photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), turbidity (Kd490), wave height, and sea surface temperature (SST) measurements. The EDS outputs were summarized at NCRMP REA Site level from 2000 to 2020 across 57 islands covered by the survey.

The EDS allows users to download/filter/extract/summarize large amounts of gridded and tabular data given user-defined time stamps and geographical coordinates. The various external environmental data summarized at individual survey sites can aid scientists to assess and understand how living marine resources are impacted by the environmental variabilities.

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The NOAA National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) details a long term approach to provide an ecosystem perspective via monitoring climate, fish, benthic, and socioeconomic variables in a consistent and integrated manner. The NCRMP coordinates various NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) biological, physical, and human dimensions activities into a cohesive NOAA-wide effort. Through the implementation of the NCRMP, NOAA is able to clearly and concisely communicate results of national-scale monitoring to national, state, and territorial policy makers, resource managers, and the public on a periodic basis.

NCRMP is a framework for conducting sustained observations of biological, climate, and socioeconomic indicators at 10 priority coral reefs across the U.S. and its territories. This integrated approach consolidates monitoring of coral reefs under a uniform method in the Pacific, Atlantic, Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico for the first time. NCRMP is funded by the Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) and supported by NOAA Fisheries, NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), NOAAs Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory (AOML), NOAA Coral Reef Watch, and many other partners. The Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD) at NOAA Fisheries is leading in-situ climate monitoring in the U.S. Pacific Islands Region.

The climate component of NCRMP in the Pacific provides a comprehensive view of climate change impacts on coral reef ecosystems and helps identify areas of resilience and vulnerability. The key indicators used to identify and monitor climate-driven trends include 1) thermal stress caused by changes in sea temperature, 2) ocean acidification resulting from changes in carbonate chemistry, and 3) ecological impacts by collecting data on coral growth rates, erosion, and community structure to understand the impacts of thermal stress and ocean acidification on the ecosystem. Each year, ESD scientists work closely with CRCP and partners during Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program (RAMP) missions to collect data using moored oceanographic and ecological instruments stationed at fixed sites in the Pacific Ocean, and water samples collected by divers. The in-situ data and satellite-based observations are also used in modeling efforts. Innovative analysis techniques are used to develop products that give fellow scientists, managers, decision makers and the public a better understanding of a regions resources and how they are changing over time.

For each site ID, summarized environmental data columns include xxx, yyy, zzz, defined by day week month level mean sd, q range.

Referred to as EDS

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.

NWHI region including following islands: "Nihoa", "Necker", "French Frigate", "Maro", "Laysan", "Lisianski", "Pearl & Hermes" "Kure", "Midway", "Gardner"

SAMOA region including following islands; "Tutuila", "Tau", "Ofu & Olosega", "Swains", "Rose", "South Bank"

CT region including following islands: "Philippines", "Timor Leste", "New Britain"

PRIAs region including following islands: "Howland", "Baker", "Jarvis", "Palmyra", "Kingman", "Johnston", "Wake"

MARIAN region including following islands: "Saipan", "Tinian", "Sarigan", "Zealandia", "Pagan", "Agrihan", "Stingray", "Farallon de Pajaros", "Supply", "Maug", "Asuncion", "Anatahan", "Guguan", "Alamagan", "Pathfinder", "Arakane", "Aguijan", "Rota", "Guam", "Santa Rosa"

MHI region including following islands: "Oahu", "Maui", "Hawaii", "Kauai" "Niihau", "Lehua", "Molokai", "Lanai", "Molokini", "Kaula", "Kahoolawe"

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NOAA Ecosystem Science Division (ESD) Data Sharing Recommendations, version 9.0 updated August 12, 2015:

ESD welcomes the opportunity to collaborate on research issues contributing to the scientific basis for better management of marine ecosystems. ESD 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 ESD principal investigators.

2) In all presentations, product releases, or publications using data generated by ESD, proper acknowledgement of both ESD 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, ESD requests that you share relevant information on complimentary data collections.

4) Those receiving data are strongly urged to inform the ESD 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 Ecosystem Science Division (ESD), Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), with funding support from the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program (OAP). 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 Fisheries, Ecosystem Science Division (ESD) when using the data.

Example:

Ecosystem Science Division; Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, 2022: NCRMP: Pacific Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program: Statistical Summary of Key Environmental Variables at Coral Reef Survey Sites across the Pacific Ocean from 2000 to 2020, https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/65209.

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R version 4.1.2 (2021-11-01) -- "Bird Hippie"

Copyright (C) 2021 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing

Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)

Rapid Ecological Assessment Quadrat Surveys Sites were used as spatiotemporal proxies of the EDS outputs.

The EDS outputs were verified by Kisei Tanaka and Thomas Oliver.

Statistically summarized environmental variables were only extracted for shallow water and hard-bottom SPC survey sites.

The same R codes are used to compute statistical summary of environmental data at each surveyed site. Periodic examination of the EDS output is conducted throughout 2020-present for bias or other discrepancies.

Kisei Tanaka is routinely conducing a standard QC measures twice every fiscal year.

NOAA IRC and NOAA Fisheries ITS resources and assets.

Environmental Data Summary (EDS) is an advanced environmental data summary tool that gives users a simple, consistent way to enhance in situ survey data with external environmental data. The EDS is written in R and provides users an interface to NOAA CoastWatch • OceanWatch datasets through the ERDDAP server protocol. The program allows users to download/filter/extract large amounts of gridded and tabular data given user-defined time stamps and geographical coordinates.