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.

Research Activities at Coral Reef Watch


NOAA Coral Reef Watch's core efforts focus on our daily global and regional 5km-resolution satellite coral bleaching heat stress products and other experimental products within our decision support system for coral reef management.

However, we also partner with collaborators in the US and international coral reef communities to conduct important research. Some research efforts are one-time investigations, while others may eventually lead to next-generation operational data products.

The ultimate goal is to incorporate satellite-based, modeled, and in situ data into the products we deliver, to provide timely information, tools, and expertise on coral reef ecosystem threats, to resource managers, scientific researchers, decision makers, in-water monitoring networks, and other stakeholders.

NOAA Coral Reef Watch's research activities with its scientific and management partners around the world are critical to the success of our program. Most of our data products, experimental and operational, would not have been possible without our many research partners.




Example NOAA Coral Reef Watch research activities:




Click here for a list of the NOAA Coral Reef Watch papers that have been published in the peer-reviewed literature, most through scientific collaboration.



For more information about our current research efforts, please contact us.