Puerto Rico Coral Reef Damage Assessment Following Hurricanes Irma and Maria

NOAA_NCEI data documents coral colony-level damage to Puerto Rico's shallow water reefs after Hurricanes Irma and Maria. The collection includes 147 transect surveys and 143 roving diver surveys across 153 sites around mainland Puerto Rico, Vieques, and Culebra. Data were collected from September 2017 to July 2018.

Use Cases

• Analyze spatial patterns of coral damage across 153 surveyed sites in the Arrecifes de la Cordillera Nature Reserve.
• Compare coral colony-level damage metrics from stratified random transect surveys versus opportunistically selected roving diver surveys.
• Assess hurricane impact severity on shallow water (< 7m) reefs using site-level triage data collected over a 10-month period.

Strengths

• Data collected from 153 distinct sites, providing broad spatial coverage of Puerto Rico's reef system.
• Combines two survey methodologies: 147 transect surveys and 143 roving surveys for complementary assessment.
• Temporal coverage spans from immediate post-hurricane triage (September 2017) to recovery assessment (July 2018).

Limitations

• Sample size and specific row/column counts are unknown, limiting reproducibility of statistical analyses.
• Data is from a single event period (2017-2018), lacking a long-term baseline for pre-hurricane comparison.
• Geographic scope is limited to Puerto Rico, Vieques, and Culebra, not representative of broader Caribbean impacts.

Provenance

Source

NOAA_NCEI (National Centers for Environmental Information).

Collection Method

Field surveys including stratified random transects and opportunistic roving diver assessments.

Time Range

2017-09-16 to 2018-07-02.

Freshness

Data collection ended on 2018-07-02; no updates are indicated, representing a static snapshot.

Geography

Shallow water (< 7m) coral reefs around mainland Puerto Rico and the islands of Vieques and Culebra.