Great Barrier Reef Marine Monitoring Program: Coral Community Data from Inshore Reefs

Inshore reefs of the Great Barrier Reef have been monitored since 2005. The dataset, managed by the Australian Ocean Data Network, documents trends in benthic reef communities, including percent cover of corals and macroalgae, juvenile coral densities, and coral disease prevalence. Data collection involves sampling at 2m and 5m depths across multiple reef locations within four Natural Resource Management regions.

Use Cases

• Modeling coral cover trends over time based on percent cover data collected since 2005.
• Assessing coral recruitment success based on juvenile coral density and coral larvae settlement tile data.
• Analyzing the impact of acute disturbances on reef composition based on monitored community characteristics.
• Investigating spatial variation in reef health across the listed inshore reef locations and NRM regions.

Strengths

• Long-term monitoring program with data collection ongoing since 2005.
• Includes multiple biological variables such as percent cover, juvenile coral density, and disease prevalence.
• Sampling design is standardized with transects marked and maintained at specific depths and sites.
• Geographic coverage spans numerous inshore reef locations across four Natural Resource Management regions.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Not all variables are ongoing; some sampling (e.g., coral size distributions, sediment analysis) ended in specific years or samples are in storage unanalyzed.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network via data_gov_au.

Collection Method

Field monitoring via video frames (2005) and digital photos (2006 onward) along transects at set depths.

Time Range

2005 to present, with some variables ending in specific years (e.g., 2006, 2014, 2020).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-23 03:49:09.579370; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Inshore reefs of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, including specific locations like Barren Island, Fitzroy Island, and Orpheus Island within Wet Tropics, NQ Dry Tropics, Mackay Whitsunday Isaac, and Fitzroy Basin NRM regions.