Public Dashboard
An introduction to the Public Dashboard where summarised data is presented.
The ReefCloud Public Dashboard is a publicly viewable website where synthesised and summarised data on hard coral, macroalgae and benthic composition from select ReefCloud Projects are displayed. Given appropriate permissions, ReefCloud aims to share global and regional trend data on coral reefs derived from ReefCloud Projects broadly using the Public Dashboard.
The Public Dashboard differs from the ReefCloud Data Portal, which requires a registered user account to access a given private project.
Explore the Public Dashboard by clicking on the green "Dashboard" button at the top right of the ReefCloud landing page. Click on the green "Explore Dashboard" pop-up to follow a tour of the site features.
General Public Dashboard features
Search: use the search icon on top left side bar to search for a region or a monitoring site.
Map layers: switch on and off different map layers to assist your analysis. Available layers include:
Boundaries such as the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), Marine Ecoregions of the World (MEOW), and Large Marine Ecosystem (LME) boundaries which can be toggled on and off.
Site Name labels for monitoring sites which can be made to appear on the map.
Allen Coral Atlas geomorphic coral reef habitat map and high resolution coral reef satellite images.
Sites: Click on an individual monitoring site, or a cluster of sites on the map to view insights into coral reef health. By hovering over a single site, the Site Name, the Organisations that own the data which contributed to the summary of a given site, and the last date the site was monitored can be viewed.
Map style: the square at the bottom left allows users to toggle between three different map styles to find a basemap that fits your reporting needs.
Zoom in and out: using the " + " and " - " buttons at the bottom right of the dashboard page to zoom in and out of the map, or click the 'world' icon to zoom out to view the full global map.
Feedback: click on the speech bubble icon at the bottom right to send feedback to the team on the Public Dashboard.
Share with others: click on the "share" button at the bottom right to generate a shareable URL which loads the map location and displays the layers you have selected.
Benthic summary data
Click on a site or a cluster of sites to view the benthic monitoring summaries for the region.
Site-level data
Clicking on an individual site will reveal information on:
Hard Coral Cover
This reveals information on the estimated proportion of the surveyed reef surface (derived from % cover from photos) that is covered by living hard coral.
Hard coral cover. Toggle the "Hard coral cover" button on and off to display the most recent known living hard (scleractinian) percentage coral cover value for each site, represented by pink circles. Larger darker circles indicate higher levels of coral cover.
Explore the "Hard coral cover trend" plot, that reveals modelled change over time in hard coral cover (y-axis) over time (x-axis). The pink line shows the modelled trend line, overlaid on the 95% confidence interval. The dots represent real sampled data. This plot is only available if the site has been surveyed multiple times. Hover your mouse over the plot to see how the coral cover values have changed with time. Major tropical cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons (wind icons) and heat stress events (thermometer icons) appear on the plot if they have impacted the site. Hover over the wind icons to reveal the name of the storm. Data can also be displayed by depth (filter either "deep" (>5m) or "shallow" (<5m) using the dropdown menu), in instances where surveys have been performed at multiple depths at the same location.
Macroalgae Cover
This shares information on the proportion of the surveyed reef (or % cover of photos) that is covered in living macroalgae, or seaweed.
Macroalgae cover. Toggle the "Macroalgae cover" button on and off to display the most recent known macroalgae cover value for each site, represented by green circles. Larger darker circles indicate higher levels of macroalgae.
Macroalgae cover trend. Explore the "Macroalgae cover trend" plot, that reveals modelled change in macroalgal cover (y-axis) over time (x-axis). The green line shows the modelled trend line, overlaid on the 95% confidence interval (pale green). The dots represent real sampled data. This plot is only available if the site has been surveyed multiple times. Hover your mouse over the plot to see how the algae cover values have changed with time. Major tropical cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons and heat stress events will also appear on the plot if they have impacted the site.
Benthic Composition
This section shares summary information on the benthic composition of the surveyed reef, in terms of 12 broad benthic groups: Hard Coral, Soft Coral, Macroalgae, Turf Algae, Crustose Coralline Algae, Cyanobacteria, Seagrass, Hard Substrate, Rubble, Soft Sediment, Other Invertebrates and Other.
Benthic composition. Toggle the "Benthic composition" button on and off to display the most dominant benthic group represented at each site on the map. Benthic groups are represented by different colours: hard coral is pink, soft coral blue, macroalge green and turf algae red. The colour of the dot appearing on the map representing the site location indicates the benthic category that had the greatest proportion the last time the site was surveyed.
Explore the "Benthic composition" bar chart, that reveals the reported proportion of each benthic category (y-axis) in different surveys (x-axis). Hover your mouse over the colourful bars to see the reported percent cover of each category, derived from survey photos. Major tropical cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons and heat stress events also appear on the plot if they have impacted the site.
This public site-level data are modelled, and therefore may look slightly different to your personal project data. ReefCloud uses site-specific models to provide estimates of the cover at a single site, informed only by data submitted from that local site.
Regional-level data
Clicking on a cluster of sites or a region (outlined blue) will reveal information on:
Hard Coral Cover
This section reveals information on the average estimated proportion of living hard coral cover at the selected region, derived from broad spatial scale models that are derived from both monitoring and environmental data.
Hard coral cover estimate. Toggle the "Hard coral cover" button on and off to display the most recent estimated hard coral cover mean value for the region, represented by pink circles. Larger darker circles indicate higher levels of coral cover.
Hard coral cover trend. Explore the "Hard coral cover trend" plot, that reveals modelled change in hard coral cover (y-axis) over time (x-axis). The pink line shows the modelled trend line, overlaid on the 95% confidence interval. This plot is only available if the site has been surveyed multiple times. Hover your mouse over the plot to see how the coral cover values have changed with time. If you select a larger region, it is less likely that tropical storm and heat events will appear on the graph, since (depending on the footprint of the natural disaster) not every single site will have been affected by high degree heating weeks or reef-damaging waves at the same time.
Hard coral cover distribution by year. Activate the toggle to explore regional changes in hard coral cover through time on the map. Use the slider to move through time, and watch as the modelled regional percent coral cover estimate changes on the map. The bar graph shows how the number of surveyed sites (y-axis) that belong to each of five reef health categories (0-10% coral cover, 10-30%, 30-50%, 50-75% and 75-100% coral cover) changes through time as you scroll.
To download the hard coral cover trend data, simply click the Download Data button located in the site info panel.
Macroalgae Cover
This section reveals information on the average estimated proportion of macroalgae across the selected region, derived from broad spatial scale models that employ both monitoring and environmental data.
Macroalgae cover estimate. Toggle the "Macroalgae cover" button on and off to display the most recent estimated algal cover mean value for the region, represented by green circles. Larger darker circles indicate higher levels of coral cover.
Macroalgae cover trend. Explore the "Macroalgae cover trend" plot, that reveals modelled change over time in estimated macroalgae cover (y-axis) over time (x-axis). The green line shows the modelled trend line, overlaid on the 95% confidence interval. This plot is only available if the site has been surveyed multiple times. Hover your mouse over the plot to see how the algae cover values have changed with time.
Macroalgae cover distribution by year. Activate the toggle to explore regional changes in estimated mean macroalgae through time on the map. Use the slider to move through time, and watch as the modelled regional percent algal cover estimate changes on the map. The bar graph shows how the number of surveyed sites (y-axis) that belong to each of five reef health categories (0-10% macroalgae cover, 10-30%, 30-50%, 50-75% and 75-100% cover) changes through time as you scroll.
To download the Macroalgae cover trend data, simply click the Download Data button located in the site info panel.
As well as site-specific models that provide estimates of benthic cover at individual ReefCloud monitoring sites, the ReefCloud system combines datasets from across lots of different projects, and uses it to create a different type of broad spatial-scale statistical model which maps both known and unknown information on hard coral cover and macroalgae cover (median and upper/lower credibility intervals) across all known coral reefs (both monitored and unmonitored) in the region. The broad-scale models use a spatial grid and information about the environment (currently cyclone activity and degree heating weeks) alongside monitoring data to generate benthic cover estimates.
These broader spatial scale models provide estimates of cover at all sites regardless of whether photos exist inside ReefCloud or not. Importantly, these models are informed by all available monitoring and environmental data for the entire region and thus, the predictions for any given site are the result of both the observed data extracted from photos for that site as well as the more general patterns in its neighbourhood. Consequently, it is possible that the two different models may yield slightly different estimates if they are both compared for a single site or an area that only had a single monitored site.
Is my ReefCloud data contributing to the Public Dashboard?
Data from each ReefCloud project is set to private by default, unless you explicitly opt to contribute it to the global effort to track reef changes, either during project set up or later. If you make your data "public", it means your Project Name, Project Description and Organisation Name may appear on the ReefCloud public dashboard, along with simple benthic summaries (hard coral, soft coral, macroalgae, turf algae, CCA, cyanobacteria, seagrass, hard substrate, soft sediment, rubble, other invertebrates and other) derived from your photo datasets and annotations. This includes the location and name of your sites, depths, year of your surveys and some basic summary statistics, including hard coral cover summaries. If you do not want your data to appear in this way, you can adjust your Project privacy settings.
Your photos, labelsets and detailed analyses will always be private.
For more information see our Privacy FAQ and review the ReefCloud Terms and Conditions.
Note: Currently, checking "Public" does not mean your data will automatically appear on the ReefCloud Public Dashboard: it still needs to go through internal QA/QC process and our science team will work with you to check you are comfortable before data contributes to global reporting summaries. *for this to happen, you will first need to map your primary project label set to our standardised global label set, using the label set mapping function.
Environmental pressures
The ReefCloud Public Dashboard also uses global environmental data on heat and storm pressures on coral reefs to help us interpret observed changes the regional and global trends in benthic composition. Currently, two environmental layers are available on the ReefCloud Public Dashboard: one related to heat stress, and one to tropical storm activity, both known to drive large-scale coral mortality on reefs.
Click on a cluster of sites or a region (outlined blue), and then scroll down in the left-hand pane and expand the "Environmental Pressures" section to explore how reefs are affected by 1) thermal stress and 2) cyclones.
Thermal stress
Mass coral bleaching has become one of the most visible and damaging environmental impacts of climate change. When the water temperature surrounding reefs rises above the long-term average maximum summer temperature for extended periods, corals can become heat-stressed, leading to coral bleaching and, eventually, death. Bleaching is the process by which corals lose their internal symbiotic algae (zooxanthellae), that give them their distinctive colours and main energy sources. If a coral is severely bleached for an extended period, disease and death become likely. Over the past decade, severe coral bleaching has become more extensive, frequent, and intense.
The Degree Heating Week (DHW) metric used on the Public Dashboard shows how much heat stress has accumulated in an area over the past 12 weeks (3 months). DHW is a widely used indicator and predictor of coral bleaching and can be estimated from long-term temperature logging and remotely sensed Sea Surface Temperature (SST) data. The units for DHW are “degree C-weeks”, combining the intensity and duration of heat stress into one single number. Based on research at NOAA Coral Reef Watch, when the heat stress reaches four-degree C-weeks, observers can expect to see significant coral bleaching, especially in more sensitive coral species. When heat stress reaches eight C-weeks or higher, widespread bleaching and significant mortality are expected.
The DHW indicator is calculated by accumulating temperature readings that are more than one degree Celsius over the historical maximum monthly mean temperature for a given location. Thus, if the temperature is 2°C above the summer maximum for 4 weeks, the corresponding DHW indicator is (2 °C x 4 weeks) 8 DHW. Over time, the thermal stress accumulates over a 12-week sliding window.
Expand the "Thermal Stress" tools section by clicking on the "+" button on the left hand panel.
Thermal Stress Exposure. A heat map with colours representing current DHW values will appear over the region selected on the map, when you toggle on this green button. Six classes of DHW are displayed, ranging from 4-6°C weeks (enough to trigger bleaching) right up to 14-20°C weeks (the most extreme bleaching events experienced to date).
Thermal Stress Trend. View the "Thermal Stress Trend" plot to see the proportion of reef area (within the region selected) exposed to moderate (orange = 4-8°C weeks) and severe (pink = >8°C weeks) bleaching events through time (since NOAA records began in 1985). Use the green slider below the plot to watch the distribution of thermal stress change on the map across your selected region through time.
See ReefCloud Manual Part 3 for more information on how to access and interpret this data for your own analyses.
Tropical cyclones
A cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with low atmospheric pressure at its calm centre (eye), inward spiralling rainbands, and strong winds forming in sufficiently warm sea surface temperatures in the world’s tropical regions. In the southern hemisphere, these tropical storms are called cyclones and rotate clockwise. In the northern hemisphere, cyclones are called hurricanes (western hemisphere) or typhoons (eastern hemisphere) and rotate in an anti-clockwise direction. If sufficiently long-lasting, the extreme winds generated by these storms can build powerful waves, severely damaging coral reefs and shorelines.
By modelling where extreme waves could form during a cyclone (based on the location and size of the eye, the air pressure, the size of the cyclone and its speed and direction), it is possible to predict a cyclone ‘damage zone’ beyond which major damage to reefs will not occur. This zone is defined as the area within which the average height of the top one-third of the waves likely meets or exceeds 4 metres (Hs – significant wave height). We call this the 4MW (Hs >= 4m) zone. Field data from 8 past cyclones in the GBR and Western Australia has shown such zones perform well at capturing severe damage – noting that because reef vulnerability is highly variable at <1km scales (due to the variability in reef structure), not all parts of the reefs within the damage zone will be damaged.
Expand the "Tropical Cyclones" tools section by clicking on the "+" button on the left hand panel to view 4MW model data for your region.
Cyclone path. Red lines, indicating the path of the most recent cyclones across reef areas, appear on the map when you toggle on the green "Tropical Cyclones" button. Only cyclones that affected the region you selected on the map appear. The name of the cyclone will appear alongside the track.
Storm damage exposure. A heat map with green colours representing the number of hours of exposure to damaging waves (wave heights equal to or over 4m are enough to damage coral) will appear over the region selected on the map, when you toggle on the green "Tropical Cyclones" button. Four classes damage are displayed, ranging from moderate (0-5 hours of exposure to damaging waves) right up to 20 hours (>10 hours is classed as extreme exposure).
4MW exposure trend. View the "4MW exposure trend" plot to see the proportion of reef sites (within the region you selected) exposed to moderate (pale green = < 5 hours 4MW) to high (5-10 hours) to extreme (>10 hours) exposure to damaging waves, each year from when records began. Where >100% of the reef area appears for any given year, some sites in your region would have been exposed to multiple cyclones or the same cyclone circling back across a reef over which its already passed. Scroll the green slider back in time to see historical cyclone tracks for each year appear on the map, and the associated footprint of exposure to damaging waves (green heat map), change on the map across your selected region through time.
See the ReefCloud Resources page for more details on how to access and interpret this data.
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