Developing a semi-automated CoralNet Bleaching Classifier: annotations and imagery from survey sites across the Hawaiian Archipelago between 2014 and 2019 (NCEI Accession 0269246)

This data package includes datasets and benthic imagery that support the development of a semi-automated coral bleaching classifier in CoralNet. The datasets in this package include annotations of imagery produced to test and train the CoralNet Bleaching Classifier, the annotation label set used in CoralNet, and site-level metadata for annotated imagery. The datasets were generated by scientists of the Ecosystem Sciences Division (ESD) at the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) at NOAA, funded by the Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP). This data package includes non-ESD imagery used to develop this classifier, including images of sites in the Papahānaumokuākea National Monument (collected in 2014 by Courtney Couch, a scientist of the ESD), and of sites in Kaneohe Bay, Oahu (in 2015 by The Nature Conservancy). Other source imagery that was used to develop this classifier was collected by the ESD during the 2019 Hawaii coral bleaching event, as well as during the 2015, 2016, and 2019 NWHI National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) survey missions following the traditional photoquadrat collection methodology for NCRMP surveys; this imagery has already been archived, or is a pending archive package; they are described and accessible at https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/59193 and https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/36152.

To create this classifier, named the NOAA ESD Coral Bleaching Classifier (accessible at: https://coralnet.ucsd.edu/source/2947/), a set of training imagery with corresponding point coordinates and label annotations were uploaded to the classifier's source. The training annotations were made by human annotators on both randomly generated and targeted points. Once the training imagery and annotations were uploaded, the automated classification abilities of the classifier were tested by uploading imagery and point locations, but without corresponding label annotations. The machine generated labels for these points were then compared against the human generated labels, which had not been uploaded. See the CoralNet Bleaching Classifier SOP for more information: https://doi.org/10.25923/d0re-9y93.