Coral Bleaching Records

[Jamie Oliver]

Dear Coral-Listers

Following Ray's posting about the latest bleaching results for the Great
Barrier Reef, and the resulting follow-up reports from other areas, I would
like to announce that  ReefBase has an online reporting facility for
bleaching records which is directly linked to our ReefBase bleaching tables
and our online GIS  (www.reefbase.org/input/bleachingreport/index.asp). This
online report can be found in the "User Input" area of ReefBase and is a
joint effort with Al Strong's group at NOAA.  It builds on, and now replaces
the online reporting facility on the NOAA site (the NOAA reporting form page
now points to the ReefBase site). While the report form allows you to enter
a great deal of information, you can enter just the key data (highlighted in
red) on date, site, severity etc on the first page and then immediately
submit. This takes less that a minute, although we would be delighted if you
can take more time and fill out the other fields if you can.  Once the
report has been submitted we will do a quick quality check on the report to
ensure it does not have any errors or critical omissions and then put it
onto the database so you will be able to see the record as a new symbol on
the ReefBase GIS.

ReefBase now has the most complete database of coral bleaching available,
incorporating the original bleaching database developed at UNEP-WCMC and
recently updated with published records from the literature, from the
Coral-List and from other major data sources such as the AIMS and the Great
Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. However I am sure that there are other
records which we do not yet have (either current or in the past), so please
help us keep this database as current and comprehensive as possible buy
submitting your reports to us. If you are unable to use the online report
because of limited internet access we would be happy to mail you a copy of
the form that you can fill out and return to us.

We are currently working on a query facility that will allow you to get all
bleaching records for a particular year or location. The results will be
displayed in report form, or can be downloaded as data tables in excel or
delimited text format.  In the mean time if you need to access the bleaching
data send me an email and  we would be happy to send you a copy of the data
table.

Please note that the Bleaching Report described here is different from the
Bleaching Questionnaire, which was announced by Terry Done a few weeks ago.
The Questionnaire is also available on ReefBase, and seeks information on
what physical & geographic factors which may protect corals from bleaching,
and might thus be important considerations in the design of Marine Protected
Areas. I would also encourage you to fill out this questionnaire if you have
information on where bleaching has and has not occurred in the past.

Best Regards

Jamie Oliver

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                 ReefBase www.reefbase.org

ReefBase is developed by ICLARM - The World Fish Center.
It is a product of the International Coral Reef Action Network (ICRAN).
It is supported by the United Nations Foundation (UNF)
and the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida)
====================================================

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Jamie Oliver
Senior Scientist (Coral Reef Projects)
ICLARM - The World Fish Center
PO Box 500, Penang 10670

Phone: (604) 626 1606
Fax: (604) 626 5530

email:  J.Oliver at cgiar.org

visit ReefBase on:  www.reefbase.org
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