New Data from Pacific May Help Save Coral Reefs

26 September 2011

Researchers are learning about the chemistry and biology of coral reefs in the Northern Marianas with the installation of a new observation station.

A new coral reef observation station is operating in Saipan in the Northern Mariana island chain of the North Pacific. The station, installed in August, will transmit an array of environmental observations, providing another monitoring tool for the Coral Reef Early Warning System (CREWS) developed by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The new station is the first of its kind in the Pacific. It expands a data collection network that includes stations in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and the Cayman Islands. The stations collect data on water and air temperature, wind speed and direction, barometric pressure, precipitation and salinity. The data will help researchers better understand the balance of physical, chemical and biological processes that preserve or damage coral reef ecosystems.

Coral reefs are important resources, providing billions of dollars in economic and environmental benefits such as fisheries, tourism and coastal protection. In Saipan alone, the economic benefits that stem from the reef are estimated to be more than $42 million.

Jim Hendee is a NOAA coral expert who led the team that built and deployed the latest addition to the CREWS stations. “This particular installation has been through several years of planning and logistics, and I’m proud of the dedicated team of scientists and engineers who brought it to fruition,” he said. “This station will expand NOAA’s conservation efforts in the Pacific and provide environmental managers with the data they need to understand the region’s coastal and coral reef ecosystem dynamics.”

Corals are small marine animals related to jellyfish. They form reefs when huge colonies come together and secrete calcite-based exoskeletons that give them structural rigidity.

The CREWS stations, installed in the waters of the reef, make up one component of a larger data-gathering system devoted to keeping watch over fragile coral reef ecosystems. The Integrated Coral Observing Network (ICON) brings together data from observation stations, satellites, radar and other sources, according to NOAA, to allow ecological forecasting for reefs. Data from the stations is also fed to NOAA’s National Data Buoy Center and made available to the World Meteorological Organization for use by weather services all over the world.

Understanding the conditions that cause reefs to thrive or degrade is important to protecting them from potentially harmful human activities. Ships aground, poor anchoring, and destructive fishing with explosives are all practices that can damage reefs. Pollution and sediment runoff from land are other factors that can disrupt reef ecological balances and set off declines.

Besides localized pressures, reefs are also sensitive to global changes, such as sea temperature increases. The World Resources Institute estimates that 75 percent of the world’s coral reefs are threatened, a number that may rise to 95 percent in the near future.