Acropora Coral Locations in the Caribbean and Florida Keys

NOAA and FWC collaborated to build an ArcGIS geodatabase aggregating Acropora coral data from multiple federal, state, university, and NGO sources. All datasets include at least Acropora presence/absence and latitude/longitude coordinates. The project was funded by award NA1ONMF4720029 from NOAA/National Marine Fisheries Service.

Use Cases

• Map the distribution of endangered Acropora palmata and cervicornis based on presence/absence data.
• Analyze spatial patterns of coral populations across the Caribbean and Florida Keys using lat/long coordinates.
• Integrate multi-agency coral data for conservation planning based on the aggregated federal, state, and NGO sources.

Strengths

• Data aggregated from multiple agencies including NOAA, National Park Service, FWC, University of Miami, and The Nature Conservancy.
• All datasets include at least presence/absence and latitude/longitude coordinates.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Collaborative multi-agency data aggregation into an ArcGIS geodatabase.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-14 23:05:23.892046; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Likely covers the Caribbean, Florida Keys, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands.