Coral Reef Resilience and Social Vulnerability to Climate Change in the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands

This dataset results from an analysis of exposure, resilience, and social vulnerability to climate change threats for the coral reefs of the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands. Standard methodologies were applied to assess ecological resilience and social vulnerability of communities surveyed by the NOAA National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) in the Pacific. The analysis focuses primarily on increases in ocean temperatures and the impact of coral bleaching on the U.S.'s Pacific coral reefs and the communities that depend on them. Findings from the analysis are presented in a publication series, Coral Reef Resilience and Social Vulnerability to Climate Change, for the main Hawaiian Islands, American Samoa, Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

The coral reef resilience indices include 7 ecological factors and temperature variability. The ecological data were derived from NCRMP datasets from 2013 to 2015---including coral demographic surveys (coral diversity, coral disease, juvenile coral density, bleaching resistant corals), reef fish surveys (herbivorous fish biomass, fishing depletion), and photoquadrat surveys (macroalgal cover)---with factor selection and calculation following McClanahan et al. (2012) and Maynard et al. (2015). Temperature variability data are from Heron et al. (2016). The 8 factors were normalized and combined to derive total resilience, bleaching resistance, coral competitiveness and other stressors. All social vulnerability data were derived from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS), analyzed following Kleiber et al. (2018). Social vulnerability indices include housing characteristics, labor force, personal disruption, population composition, and poverty. Exposure data presented in the publication series are directly from van Hooidonk et al. (2016) and are not included with this dataset.

The geographic data file to plot the ecological data generated from the analysis are included with this dataset. The social data can be plotted using the TIGER Line shapefiles for county subdivisions from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Tags: 30174, aguihan, aguihan island (aguijan) (14n145e0006), aguihan island reefs, alamagan island, alamagan island (17n145e0002), american samoa, american samoa (14s170w0000), and social adaptive capacity, aquatic habitat, asuncion island, asuncion island (19n145e0001), baker island, baker island (00n176w0001), biology, biosphere, central pacific ocean, climate change vulnerability analysis for us pacific reefs - integrating exposure, cnmi, coastal processes, commonwealth of the northern mariana islands, coral, coral - species identification, coral reef conservation program, coral reef ecology, coral reef studies, coral reefs, corals, country/territory, derived products, doc/noaa/nmfs/pifsc, earth science, ecosystem sciences division, equatorial pacific ocean, farallon de pajaros, farallon de pajaros (20n144e0001), fish, fish - coral reef, fish assemblages, fish biomass, french frigate shoals (24n166w0001), gis product, guam, guam (13n144e0000), guguan, guguan island, guguan island (17n145e0001), hawaii, hawaii island, hawaii island (19n155w0003), hawaiian islands, hawaiian islands (21n157w0027), honolulu, howland island, howland island (00s176w0001), in situ, jarvis island (00s160w0001), johnston atoll, johnston atoll (16n169w0001), kauai, kauai island, kauai island (22n159w0001), kingman reef (06n162w0001), kure atoll (28n178w0001), lanai island, lanai island (20n156w0002), latitude, laysan island (25n171w0001), line islands, lisianski island (25n173w0001), longitude, macroalgae, main hawaiian islands, manu'a group, manu'a islands (14s170w0038), mariana archipelago, mariana islands, marianas, marianas trench marine national monument, marine biology, maro reef (25n170w0001), maug, maug island, maug island (20n145e0001), maui, maui island, maui island (20n156w0004), mhi, midway atoll (28n177w0001), molokai island, molokai island (21n157w0001), national marine fisheries service, niihau island, niihau island (21n160w0001), nmfs, noaa, north pacific ocean, northern mariana islands, northern mariana islands ( cnmi ) (18n146e0000), northwest pacific ocean, northwestern hawaiian islands, northwestern hawaiian islands (28n178w0000), numeric data sets, nwhi, oahu (21n157w0003), oahu island, ocean and climate change, ocean basin, oceans, ofu island (14s169w0013), olosega island (14s169w0014), pacific islands fisheries science center, pacific ocean, pacific remote island areas, pacific remote islands marine national monument, pagan, pagan island, pagan island (18n145e0001), palmyra atoll (05n162w0001), papahanaumokuakea marine national monument, pifsc, pmnm, pria, primnm, reef and/or bottom regime - percent cover, reef habitat, reef monitoring and assessment, resilience, rose atoll (14s168w0001), rose atoll marine national monument, rota, rota island, rota island ( luta ) (14n145e0007), saipan, saipan island, saipan island (15n145e0002), sarigan island, sarigan island (16n145e0003), satellite data, south pacific ocean, survey - coral reef, survey â swimmer/diver, swains atoll (11s171w0001), ta'u island (14s169w0012), tinian, tinian island (14n145e0005), tinian island reefs, tutuila island (14s170w0016), u.s. department of commerce, united states of america, us doc, usa minor outlying islands, wake atoll, wake atoll (19n167e0001), water temperature, western pacific ocean, zoology
Organization: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce