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Context

As the monitoring data in this training course are derived from reefs in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region and most of the participants in this training course are from or represent organisations within the region, it makes sense to provide some background to the monitoring efforts in the WIO. This includes advances from previous regional status and trend reports, methods and the current state of data management and capability in the region.

This page aims to provide a brief overview of monitoring in the WIO, methods, and data management practises as an overall context for this training course.

Previous monitoring efforts

Coral reef monitoring in the Western Indian Ocean covers numerous programmes in Comoros, France, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, South Africa and Tanzania. This includes information from 822 reef locations gathered by 54 organisations in the region.

The latest assessment report from 2017 indicated that hard coral cover had declined across the region since the 1998 bleaching event, reducing average coral cover to ~30%, representing an overall decline of ~25% from pre-bleaching levels. Although this assessment suggests the current state of reefs in the region is relatively good, a number of management actions are recommended to assist the recovery and build resilience for coral reef ecosystems in the region, including:

This section provides an overview of the monitoring methods and data management practises that produce the base information for this training course. As part of this training, techniques and tools for data standardisation, visualisation and reporting aim to increase the effectiveness of monitoring trends and inform policy for improved management.

Monitoring methods

Coral reef monitoring in the WIO includes information on three main components of reef ecosystems, including percent cover of substrate, reef fishes and mobile invertebrates. The methods for each of these components are detailed in the 2014 monitoring manual.

The documentation of reef cover can come from a number of methods, including Line Intercept Transects (LIT), Point Intercept Transects (PIT), visual quadrats, as well as photographic and video methodologies. Categories of ethic cover types are categorised according to a hierarchical levels of detail, from coarser to finer levels of detail:

Current data management practises

There is a range of data management practises and standards used by different agencies across the region.

As the regional coral reef status reporting to date has been based on standardised data template, which reduces the variation in the way data are provided. One of the main objectives of this training course is to increase the regional capacity to standardise data and provide more equitable national level reporting for coral reef data.

Video instruction

Please review this short video that details some of the coral reef monitoring efforts in the WIO:

Next steps

Having covered the broader context for this training course, we would like to present the general approach for this training here.