IMPORTANT USER ALERT (2 July 2024): This past weekend, a storage server at NOAA's Center for Satellite Applications and Research, which delivers the NOAA Coral Reef Watch data, suffered a hardware failure. The issue is being addressed, and we hope to have the NOAA Coral Reef Watch data back up and running as soon as possible. (1) The most recent data will be made available first; historical data may take time to be restored. (2) If you need specific data that are not yet available, please contact us at coralreefwatch@noaa.gov. (3) If you use code to pull data, please revise your code to use “…/socd/…” in lieu of “…/sod/…” in all relevant web addresses for all future needs. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Daily 750m VIIRS Satellite Ocean Color Monitoring
(Version 1.0, experimental product, released May 10, 2018)

Click on an image below for region-specific ocean color products: Chlorophyll-a and Kd(490)

Main Hawaiian Islands                

Puerto Rico                
hawaii_image
puerto_rico_image
Product Description

NOAA Coral Reef Watch and NOAA/National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) Ocean Color Team are working closely with partners in the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force (USCRTF) Watershed Working Group (WWG) to develop satellite ocean color products for use over coral reefs. Data are from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) onboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) satellite operated by the NOAA Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS).

NOAA and the USCRTF have identified Land-Based Sources of Pollution (LBSP) as one of the three major threats to coral reef ecosystem health. LBSP is typically caused by coastal and upstream land development and is identifiable by a significant increase in water turbidity, especially following large precipitation events. The experimental VIIRS satellite ocean color products presented here are designed to help coral reef ecosystem and watershed managers monitor variable water turbidity and phytoplankton biomass. The two VIIRS products related to these physical parameters are, respectively, the diffuse attenuation coefficient at 490 nm, Kd(490) (m-1), and chlorophyll-a concentration (mg m-3). Anomalously high values of Kd(490) are often related to runoff from land, usually after heavy precipitation events or from industrial or residential discharges, and resuspension of sediment. Anomalously high concentrations of chlorophyll-a are often related to high nutrient input events.

NOAA Coral Reef Watch is developing VIIRS satellite ocean color products for two high priority watershed sites adjacent to coastal coral reefs, identified by the USCRTF WWG. These include West Maui, Ka'anapali, Hawai'i (within the Main Hawaiian Islands, left image above) and Guánica Bay, Puerto Rico (right image above). The spatial resolution of the VIIRS data used for deriving these images is 750m, and products (both data and images) are updated daily.

Support for the development of the VIIRS satellite ocean color products has been provided by the NOAA Ocean Remote Sensing Program and the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program.