As part of the USGS Coral Reef Project, recent USGS work on Molokaʻi includes looking into the coral record to find clues to past sedimentation events.
Overview
The Friendly Isle of Molokaʻi encompasses 673 sq km (260 sq mi), making it the fifth largest of the main eight Hawaiian Islands. The north and west coasts of the island have little coral growth due to impact from northwest swell. However, protected from the southern swell waves by the islands of Lānaʻi and Kahoʻolowe, the south shore of Molokaʻi boasts the longest continuous fringing reef of the U.S. and its holdings. Studies by scientists at the University of Hawaiʻi's Coral Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program have shown that Molokaʻi has sites with the best coral coverage in the main eight Hawaiian Islands. Yet impacts from sediment run-off into the nearshore ecosystem have also caused areas of degradation of the south Molokaʻi reef.
Motivation
The USGS has used the south Molokaʻi reef as its test ground for developing benthic habitat mapping methods including remote sensing and underwater videography. Investigations into sedimentation along the south coast involve deployment of instrument packages to measure oceanographic conditions such as turbidity, currents, waves, temperature, and salinity. Recent work on Molokaʻi includes looking into the coral record to find clues to past sedimentation events.
The USGS has many cooperators on Molokaʻi including the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force (USCRTF) Hawaiian Local Action Strategy (HI-LAS) for Land-Based Pollution (LBP), University of Hawaiʻi, University of Washington, University of California, Santa Cruz, Australian National University, and The Nature Conservancy.
The Hawaiian island of Molokaʻi is just one of the USGS Coral Reef Project's study locations.
Reef Hydrodynamics and Sediment Processes
Role of Reefs in Coastal Protection
Reef Resource Assessments - Planning for the Future
Hydrogeology and Reef Health
Climate Change and Land-use Histories
- Overview
As part of the USGS Coral Reef Project, recent USGS work on Molokaʻi includes looking into the coral record to find clues to past sedimentation events.
Overview
Sources/Usage: Public Domain.Multi-spectral LANDSAT 8 and ASTER satellite imagery provided by the US Geological Survey and NASA. The Friendly Isle of Molokaʻi encompasses 673 sq km (260 sq mi), making it the fifth largest of the main eight Hawaiian Islands. The north and west coasts of the island have little coral growth due to impact from northwest swell. However, protected from the southern swell waves by the islands of Lānaʻi and Kahoʻolowe, the south shore of Molokaʻi boasts the longest continuous fringing reef of the U.S. and its holdings. Studies by scientists at the University of Hawaiʻi's Coral Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program have shown that Molokaʻi has sites with the best coral coverage in the main eight Hawaiian Islands. Yet impacts from sediment run-off into the nearshore ecosystem have also caused areas of degradation of the south Molokaʻi reef.
Motivation
The USGS has used the south Molokaʻi reef as its test ground for developing benthic habitat mapping methods including remote sensing and underwater videography. Investigations into sedimentation along the south coast involve deployment of instrument packages to measure oceanographic conditions such as turbidity, currents, waves, temperature, and salinity. Recent work on Molokaʻi includes looking into the coral record to find clues to past sedimentation events.
The USGS has many cooperators on Molokaʻi including the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force (USCRTF) Hawaiian Local Action Strategy (HI-LAS) for Land-Based Pollution (LBP), University of Hawaiʻi, University of Washington, University of California, Santa Cruz, Australian National University, and The Nature Conservancy.
- Science
The Hawaiian island of Molokaʻi is just one of the USGS Coral Reef Project's study locations.
Reef Hydrodynamics and Sediment Processes
As part of the USGS Coral Reef Project, the overall objective of this research effort is to better understand how circulation and sediment processes impact coral reefs and their adjacent coastlines.Role of Reefs in Coastal Protection
We are combining ocean, engineering, ecologic, social, and economic modeling to provide a high-resolution, rigorous, spatially-explicit valuation of the coastal flood protection benefits provided by coral reefs and the cost effectiveness of reef restoration for enhancing those benefits.Reef Resource Assessments - Planning for the Future
We are mapping and assessing all of the important geologic and oceanographic factors to identify those coral reefs most at risk and those reefs that are potentially the most resilient and the most likely to recover from natural and human-driven impacts.Hydrogeology and Reef Health
As part of the USGS Coral Reef Project, we are conducting geophysical and geochemical research to address questions about coastal groundwater-to-reef flow and coral reef health, with the goal of informing management decisions related to planning and implementing activities in priority watershed-coral reef systems.Climate Change and Land-use Histories
As part of the USGS Coral Reef Project, we are developing new and unique oceanographic and environmental archives from coral skeleton records to better understand the compounding effects of land-use and environmental change on coral reef health. - Data
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