Figure 1.
Map of the Coral Triangle region showing (orange polygons) the distribution of coral reefs and the boundaries of the Coral Triangle (red line) according to [12].
Figure 2.
Spatial variability in selected oceanographic parameters from the Coral Triangle region.
(a) Sea surface temperature during January 2009. The lightblue areas of sea represent locations where no data were available due to cloud coverage. (b) Surface chlorophyll-a concentration (mg m−3). The chlorophyll-a data were derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS; http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov) Aqua satellite. The light blue areas of sea represent locations where no data were available due to cloud cover. (c) Average current speed in January 2012. Data are average (monthly, 1° grid spatial resolution) geostrophic currents derived from satellite altimetry and wind data, and were obtained from NOAA's Ocean Surface Currents Analyses, Real-Time (OSCAR; http://www.oscar.noaa.gov). (d) Distribution of night-lights in 2009. This map is an ‘annual composite’ which means it is an average of the highest quality night-time visible band data within each orbital swathe of the satellite. The highest quality data are free from solar and lunar illumination, cloud-cover, solar glare and auroral contamination. For these annual composites, the data are also constrained to mid-swathe where the data are less noisy and geo-referencing is more accurate. (Note: The composite product most applicable to the Coral Triangle Initiative is the normalized average lights, or “avg_lights_x_pct” product. This product is made by averaging the highest quality data, determined to be lights in the individual orbital swathes, and then normalizing this average by the percent frequency of light detection. Annual composites are generated as 30 arc-second grids and are currently available from satellites spanning the years 1992–2009).
Figure 3.
Screen shot demonstrating the overlaying of Marine Protected Area (MPA) and coral reef data from the CT-Atlas to derive the results available online in Table S1.
Figure 4.
Barplot summarising: (top left) total area of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) reported by the government; (top right) total area of MPAs with known boundaries; (bottom left) total coral reef area in each country; and (bottom right) the total area of coral reef afforded some protection by MPAs.
Note data are available in the Table S1.