Benthic Images from 18 Reef Sites in Aua, American Samoa, 2022

540 benthic images were collected by NOAA's Ecosystem Sciences Division in September 2022 across 18 study sites on Aua Reef, American Samoa. The images were taken every meter along 30-meter belt transects to record community composition, following National Coral Reef Monitoring Program protocols. This imagery serves as a baseline to study the effects of land-based source pollution.

Use Cases

• Estimating benthic cover and composition at specific reef sites based on the photoquadrat imagery.
• Studying the effects of a water quality gradient on reef communities based on the stratified sampling design.
• Training or validating image analysis models for automated coral and benthic classification using the high-resolution photographs.

Strengths

• Implements a stratified random sampling design across 18 sites to reduce estimate variance.
• Provides 30 high-resolution photographs per site, totaling 540 images for analysis.
• Follows established NOAA National Coral Reef Monitoring Program protocols from 2015.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The description notes that site-to-site comparisons should be made with caution due to the sampling design.

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Belt transect surveys with photoquadrat imagery collected by scientists using a pole-mounted camera.

Time Range

2022

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03 14 22:59:53.356542; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Aua Reef, American Samoa, focusing on reef and hard bottom habitats in the 0 to 6 m depth range.