MONITORING
Monitoring, in many different forms, is an essential part of the science efforts at Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. Click on the links below to visit each of the following categories on this page:
Water Quality
Long-Term Monitoring
Coral Bleaching
Coral Spawning
Coral Coring - Paleoclimatology
Hurricanes & Tropical Storms
WATER QUALITY
During each cruise, opportunistic temperature and salinity profiles are measured by staff researchers using a YSI probe deployed by hand. These data compliment the data collected by stationary water quality instruments on the sea floor at each bank by giving additional information about the conditions at the surface and throughout the water column.
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LONG-TERM MONITORING
The three banks of Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary are monitored on an annual basis as part of a Long-term Monitoring program. This program, which first began at East and West Flower Garden Banks, is one of the longest long-term monitoring programs of a coral reef anywhere in the world!
For more information on long-term monitoring activities and reports, please click on the links below.
Long-term Monitoring: East and West Flower Garden Banks
Long-term Monitoring: Stetson Bank
Long-term Monitoring Reports
In addition, raw and processed data from annual long-term monitoring is now being stored with NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information. Due to the size of these data sets, it will be some time before all years are available.
2018 Stetson Bank Long-Term Monitoring Data Sets
2016 Stetson Bank Long-Term Monitoring Data Sets
2014 Stetson Bank Long-Term Monitoring Data Sets
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