A Decision Support System for Ecosystem-Based Management of

Tropical Coral Reef Environments

F. Muller-Karger, M. Eakin, L. Guild,C. Hu, M. Vega, R. Nemani, T. Christensen, L. Wood, C.

Ravillious,C. Nim, J. Li, C. Fitzgerald, J. Hendee, L. Gramer, S. Lynds

Partnerships

NOAA NESDIS/CRW-CRCP (Mark Eakin, Tyler Christensen)

NOAA AOML / ICON/CREWS-CRCP (James Hendee)NASA Headquarters (Woody Turner, Paula Bontempi)NASA Ames (Liane Guild, Ramakrishna Nemani)UNEP-WCMC (Louisa Wood, Corinna Ravilious, Claire

Fitzgerald)University of South Florida (Frank Muller-Karger,

Chuanmin Hu, Maria Vega)(Welcoming a partnership with Australia!)

AcknowledgementsFunding provided by:

NASA Applications ProgramWoody Turner2008 Ecological Forecasting

application area4-year program (2008-2013)

NOAANESDIS Coral reef Watch

Location of shallow tropical coral reef ecosystems (Source: ReefBase). The four coral reef biogeographic regions that are typically recognized by marine biogeographers are shown in circles: (1) Indian, (2) Indo-Pacific, (3) Pacific and (4) Caribbean.

Coral Biogeography

Considering:potential for human food supplyrecreation and management (i.e. marine

protected area monitoring and regulation) socio-economic value: ~US$6,000 / Ha/year

(Costanza et al. 1997). (swamp/floodplains ($8,000 ha/y), wetlands ($5,000

ha/y), mangroves ($3,000 ha/y), estuaries ($1,500 ha/y))

-up to $675 billion annually in fish, seafood, tourism, and coastal protection worldwide

-$17 billion in U.S. tourism-1 billion people rely on reef fish for food

Coral: Socio-Economic Importance

Over 60% of the world's reefs are under threat.Factors:

increasing temperature, increasing dissolved inorganic carbon in ocean

waters,increased use of coastal resources including

fishing, coastal development, pollution

Tropical Coral Reefs: Ecosystems under Stress

NOAA Coral Reef Watch(Mark Eakin and team / NESDIS)

MissionTo provide remote sensing tools for

the conservation of coral reef ecosystems.

Coral Reef Watch aims to assist in the management, study, and assessment of impacts of environmental change on coral reef ecosystems.

NOAA Coral Reef Watch DSS:empirical models and the AVHRR Global Area Coveragenear-real time suite of products to monitor and forecast

thermal stress that may cause coral bleaching

Products: night-time only 50 km SST anomaly, coral bleaching HotSpots, Degree Heating Weeks, and Satellite Bleaching Alerts. http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/

methodology.html.

NOAA: Coral Reef Watch

CRW-Operational SST-based products

Primary Products: AVHRR SST-based

Coral – specific

50km Nighttime Sea Surface Temperature (SST)

Operational 2002

SST Anomaly

2002

HotSpot

2002

Degree Heating Week

2003

Bleaching Alert Areas

2009

NOAA CRW DSS

The 2005 Bleaching Event in the Western Hemisphere. The image shows the Degree-Heating Weeks (DHW) accumulated through 1 November, 2005. Note high DHW (yellow-orange colors) in the eastern Caribbean Sea. Significant bleaching took place in the U.S. Territories and adjacent islands.

DHW corresponds to one week of SST exceeding the maximum summer SST by one ºC. A value of two DHWs indicates two hot weeks, but is also equivalent to one entire week of SST exceeding the maximum summer SST by two ºC.

Objectives of NASA-NOAA-USF ProgramAssess value of high-spatial resolution SST data

(MODIS, AVHRR) and the Global Coral Reef Millennium Map (Landsat) to improve the NOAA Coral Reef Watch decision support system (CRW DSS)

Help further develop the CRW DSS

Develop end-to-end evaluation and feedback mechanism to meet user needs.

Link to plans for:Hyperspectral and Infrared Imager (HyspIRI)Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM)NPP, NPOESS, other environmental satellites

Help develop the CRW DSS includes:Assess value of existing CRW products.Span scales: from ICON/CREW high temporal

& spatial resolution to global CRWEvaluate optimal spatial and temporal

resolutions for coral reef applications. Experimental 1, 4, and 50 km spatial resolution

products from MODIS and AVHRR. Validate in partnership with NOAA ICON/CREWS

Consider enhanced stress indices (e.g. cold, heat, water quality, other)

Integrate Coral Reef Millennium Map products.Visualization and “knowledge” interface,

tailored to monitoring and policy-making.

Evaluation componentCooperative Institute for Research in

Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado at Boulder (Mark Mcaffrey, Susan Lynds)

Will verify that the program meets goals of the NASA Applied Sciences Program

Will assess:Efforts to document development of products and

toolsEffort to solicit feedback and assistance on use and

usabilityEffort to learn whether the task meets the needs of

identified stakeholders

Sample product: Global DHW* Rama Nemani and NASA Ames supercomputer

Accumulation of 12 weeks of hotspots by the first week of January 2008at moderate (8 km) resolution.

Sample product: Millennium Map

Figure 5. Sample Millennium Map products for the Florida Keys displayed on Google Earth.

Figure 4. Sample Millennium Coral Reef Map geomorphological classification, based on Landsat-7 data.

Florida Keys and Puerto Rico: high-res test sites

Map of FKNMS showing various water zones. The map covers an area from 24.09◦ N to 26.23◦ N and from 83.22◦ W to 79.9◦ W. The circled crosses show locations of the NDBC stations. Base map courtesy of Kevin Kirsch (FKNMS).

High-resolution Degree Heating Week example

Left: 50-km DHW product Right: Equivalent 1-km DHW product

for 3-day period ending on August 20, 2005

Land mask colors are reversed between the images with zero DHW shown as black in the NOAA image and white in the USF image.

Reference: Building an Automated Integrated Observing System to Detect Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly Events in the Florida Keys. 2009.

Chuanmin Hu, Frank Muller-Karger, Brock Murch, Douglas Myhre, Judd Taylor, Remy Luerssen, Christopher Moses, Caiyun Zhang, Lew Gramer, and James Hendee. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 47, NO. 6, JUNE 2009

High resolution preserves spatial patterns of importance to reefs

High-resolution (1-km) AVHRR SST imagery (NOAA-16 satellite) showing small-scale (∼1020 km, ∼< 1 ◦C) frontal eddies (annotated with black arrows) along the shallow isobaths in the Florida Straits

January 22, 2002 at 7:36 GMT and January 23, 2002 at 18:45 GMT. Eddies are due to shelf wave dynamics, and they cannot be detected by other coarser

resolution data (4 km or lower).

Other possible “enhancements” and joint workCold water stress indexMarine Spatial Planning support via CRW

Variables: SST, CHL, SSH, other?Access monthly (weekly) climatologies per

pixelLong-term time seriesTrends in variablesPlotting and data extraction

Millennium: Kristian Teleki had proposed a visualization and “knowledge” interface, tailored to monitoring and policy-making.

January 25 – February 17, 2010 78 sites were surveyed across the Florida Reef

Tract from the Lower Keys to Martin County Areas impacted the most were the inshore and mid

channel zones from Summerland Key in the lower Keys through Biscayne National Park.

Forereef zones region-wide, reefs west of Summerland Key and reefs north of Biscayne National Park were, much less affected but were highly impacted.

Highest coral mortality seen in the last 5 years. Frequent observations showed that corals would generally pale for a day then die.

All species were affected

Cold water stress monitoring

Florida Reef Tract

SST between10º C – 21º C

Critical low SST temperature threshold is ~ 13° C:mass mortality in scleractinian coral communities

Dr. Tianran Chen, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Guangzhou, China

Additional Cases Reported Saudi Arabia, Northern Gulf

Reported in February 2010 Lowest water temp. ~10° C Affected Species: Acropora

Miami, Florida 1969/70 (snowed) Affected Species: Acropora Never proliferated in Dry Tortugas

The Daya Bay, Northern South China Sea During Cold Events: Mean SST for February fall to <

14℃, including six continuous days at 12.3℃. Observed coral taxa such as Turbinaria peltata,

Plesiastrea versipora and Acropora pruinosa, suffer from cold-water stress.

Staghorn coral, wikipedia

SUMMARY

-Partnership established between NASA, NOAA, USF to further develop the Coral Reef Watch DSS

-Elements will include user surveys and ground validation

-Products will include NASA products (MODIS, Landsat Millennium Coral Reef Map)

-Pathfinder for higher resolution missions (HyspIRI, LDCM, VIIRS/NPP)

-Next team meeting: 9-10 December 2010, NASA Ames