Pacific Reef CTD Profiles for Shallow Water Quality Assessment

Vertical profiles of conductivity, temperature, and pressure from shallow water surveys conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The data includes measurements from transmissometers and dissolved oxygen sensors, collected at a descent rate of 0.5 to 0.75 meters per second to a maximum depth of 30 meters. Profiles were processed using Sea-Bird Instrument's SeaSoft SBE Data Processing software.

Use Cases

• Modeling water mass distribution based on conductivity and temperature profiles
• Assessing near-shore water quality based on turbidity and dissolved oxygen measurements
• Characterizing the physical environment influencing coral reefs based on vertical profile data

Strengths

• Sensor accuracy specifications are provided: 0.005 S m-1 in conductivity, 0.0002C in temperature, and 0.1% in pressure
• Data collection method is detailed, including descent rate (0.5 to 0.75m s-1) and maximum depth (30m)
• Processing software is explicitly named (Sea-Bird SeaSoft SBE Data Processing Software)

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to datagov, focusing on selected Pacific locations

Provenance

Source

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce

Collection Method

Data collected by lowering a CTD in profiling mode from a small boat.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-14 23:02:45.828487; freshness should be verified

Geography

Selected locations in the Pacific Ocean, including American Samoa