Healthy reef in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Undated image courtesy NOAA.
The U.S. National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) has released its 2018 scorecards for coral reefs in U.S. waters in five Pacific regions. The downloadable reports are a treasure trove of information and images, in addition to timely assessments of reef health in different American states and territories.
According to NOAA:
NOAA’s Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP) supports the monitoring program throughout the U.S. Pacific, Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean coral reef areas.
This program is a strategic framework for conducting sustained observations of biological, climatic, and socioeconomic indicators in U.S. states and territories. The resulting data provide a robust picture of the condition of U.S. coral reef ecosystems and the communities connected to them.
A key component of the NCRMP program is a periodic, national-level assessment on the status and trends of U.S. coral reef areas. Status reports for American Samoa, Hawaiian Archipelago, Pacific Remote Islands, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands are currently available.
Ecosystem condition status reports are a common approach to synthesizing a large amount of ecosystem monitoring data into a public-friendly report that can be understood by decision makers, managers, and scientists alike.
Fundamentally, status reports help answer the question “How is the ecosystem doing?” The goals of a status report are to: provide a broad-level assessment, communicate complex information, use real data, and engage communities. To advance this effort, CRCP and IAN-UMCES brought together scientific experts, natural resource managers, and other stakeholders from NOAA and local jurisdictions to develop these reports.
Links to all downloadable reports are listed here:
GUAM – FAIR
https://www.coris.noaa.gov/monitoring/status_report/docs/Guam_status_report_forweb.pdf
HAWAIIAN ISLANDS – Northern Islands & Main Islands – FAIR
https://www.coris.noaa.gov/monitoring/status_report/docs/Hawaii_status_report_forweb.pdf
NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS – FAIR
https://www.coris.noaa.gov/monitoring/status_report/docs/CNMI_status_report_forweb.pdf
PACIFIC REMOTE ISLANDS – GOOD
https://www.coris.noaa.gov/monitoring/status_report/docs/PRI_status_report_forweb.pdf
AMERICAN SAMOA – GOOD
https://www.coris.noaa.gov/monitoring/status_report/docs/AmerSamoa_status_report_forweb.pdf
METHODOLOGY and SCORING
https://www.coris.noaa.gov/monitoring/status_report/docs/Pacific_Status_Reports_Methods_12-5-18.pdf
SOURCES
CoRIS (NOAA’s Coral Reef Information System)
https://www.coris.noaa.gov/monitoring/status_report/
