CoralWatch is a programme set up by The University of Queensland, Australia, that uses the presence of bleaching to monitor the health of the reefs. By using this non-invasive technique, CoralWatch is gathering useful data, on a relatively large scale, which is used to help educate the public about coral bleaching and its devastating effect on coral reefs.

What coral bleaching means

Corals are very sensitive organisms that are adversely affected by even slight changes in their surrounding environment. atresses such as rises in temperature, oil spills, increasing urbanisation, tourism, over-fishing, run-off from the land and salinity can cause bleaching. Coral is able to recover from a bleaching event if the stressful conditions that caused it are removed, but if they continue the coral eventually dies.

CoralWatch for OceansWatch Members

You do not need to have scientific training in order to carry out a CoralWatch survey. We can send you all the necessary materials together with a little background reading. CoralWatch surveys can be done wherever you are at anchor, either under snorkel or scuba. Order Coralwatch cards

How to do the Surveying

• • We are currently reviewing the CoralWatch methodology.
  • The charts are colour coded to represent the actual colours of both healthy and bleached coral. You match the lightest and darkest colour of the coral with the colours on the chart and enter the readings on a waterproof slate.
  • At the end of your dive you transfer the data into the excel spreadsheet we provide and send it to: data@oceanswatch.org

Tips

• • Not all corals will match a colour or category on the chart so the closest colour or coral category should be recorded in this case.
  • If there is a coral that has one or more areas of bleaching but there are no other corals in this area with this same effect, then ignore it as it is likely to be an anomaly or predation.
  • It is common to have white tipped ends to the coral. These are the growing and should not be mistaken for a bleaching occurrence.
  • The chart cannot assess blue or purple coloured corals.