MONITORING CORAL BLEACHING BY SATELLITE THERMAL PRODUCTS: A CASE STUDY IN THE SOUTHERN EAST SEA, VIETNAM A Thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts by NGAN THUY LE Dr. Cuizhen Wang, Thesis Supervisor MAY 2012 The undersigned, appointed by Dean of the Graduate School, have examined the thesis entitled MONITORING CORAL BLEACHING BY SATELLITE THERMAL PRODUCTS: A CASE STUDY IN THE SOUTHERN EAST SEA, VIETNAM Presented by Ngan Thuy Le A Candidate for the degree of Master of Arts in Geography And hereby certify that in their opinion it is worthy of acceptance. Professor Cuizhen Wang Professor Michael A. Urban Professor Robert Sites ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My thesis would not have been accomplished without the great supports from my professors, my friends and my family.
First of all, I would like to show my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Cuizhen Wang, whose encouragement, guidance and support from the initial to the final level enabled me to develop an understanding of the research. I will not forget the days Dr. Wang working hard on the IDL programming to help me approach the best results.
Without her contributions, my enthusiasm in studying coral reefs could not be possible. I also would like to thank Dr. Mike Urban and Dr. Robert Sites who were willing to attend my Thesis Committee and gave me an adequate time to finish my thesis as satisfactorily as I expected.
There is no word can express my appreciation to their patience. It is an honor for me to meet and learn from Vietnamese specialists working at the Oceanography Institute in summer 2011. I am heartily thankful to Mr. Phan Kim Hoang and Mr.Tong Phuoc Hoang Son, who shared with me their plenty of precious knowledge about the coral reefs in Vietnam.
Their sharing inspired me and helped me clarify my research questions. Son did not hesitate to spend his valuable time teaching me working with the remote sensing data. I deeply admire his devotion and her passion to share his experiences with me. I should also send my thanks to Mr.
Le Chi Lam, my mentor in Vietnam and Mr. Nguyen Thanh Minh at the Department of Natural Resources and Environment in Khanh Hoa Province for their technical supports. ii Besides, I offer my regards and blessings to all faculty members and staff in the Department of Geography as well as my friends who supported me in any respect during the completion of my Master program. I really appreciate Dr.
Matt Foulkes who questioned me: “Why did you do that?” to force me think deeply about the purpose of my study. In addition, special thanks to Dr. Joe Hobbs, Chair of the Department and Director of the Vietnam Institute, who gave me opportunity to study at MU and always, cares for me with his kindness heart. Moreover, I would not overcome many challenges and depressions without the encouragements from my greatest friends who are working or studying in Vietnam, Europe and at MU.
I wish I could express completely my love to my “intimate sisters”, Nga Bui and Ha Phan, who are always beside me, understand my obstacles and support me as much as they can. Last but not least, I would like to send my honest gratitude to my family for their countless love and confidence on me. This thesis is a special gift for my beloved parents. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.
ii LIST OF FIGURES. vii LIST OF TABLES .x LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS AND EQUATIONS. Threats to Reefs. Predicting coral bleaching by sea surface temperature.
Status of Coral Reefs in Vietnam. Status of Coral Reefs at Con Dao and Phu Quoc Archipelagos .Coral bleaching at Con Dao Archipelago. Coral bleaching at Phu Quoc Archipelago. Global Thermal Anomalies in 2010.
MATERIALS AND METHODS. AVHRR Pathfinder (PF) Version 5 SST Products .MODIS Aqua SST Products. NOAA Coral Reef Watch Datasets .Observation Sites and Mainland Boundary. Data Pre-processing.
Extracting SST Value From AVHRR and MODIS Products. Excluding of Invalid Pixels. Calculating SST Climatology and Maximum Monthly Mean (MMM). Calculating Bleaching HotSpot.
Calculating Degree Heating Week (DHW). Generating of Bleaching Alert. Statistic analysis of MODIS- and AVHRR-derived SST Value. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS.
Comparison of MODIS- and AVHRR-derived SST Value. Results of Correlation Analyses .Results of Paired Comparisons. Comparison of SST in the Southwestern and Southeastern Areas of the East Sea49 4. Thermal Stress in Bleaching Years.
Thermal stress in 1998. Thermal Stress in 2005. Thermal Stress in 2010. Comparison of the 50 km and 4 km Bleaching Prediction Products.
Bleaching Threshold and Weekly SST Products. Mapping HotSpots and Bleaching Prediction. Outputs from Linear Regression of the 2005 Weekly SST Data. Outputs from Paired Comparison of the 2005 Weekly SST Data .93 LIST OF FIGURES vi FIGURES PAGE Figure 1.1: Anatomy of a coral polyp .2: Major coral reef sites are red dots on the world map .3: Coral bleaching process .4: Trends in coral bleaching, 1980 – 2010 .1: Reef distribution in the coastal waters of Vietnam .2: Location of observed sites at Con Dao in 1994-2004 .3: Location of observed sites at Phu Quoc in 1994-2007 .4: The percentage of hard coral cover observed at Con Dao in 1994-2004 .5: The percentage of hard coral cover observed at Phu Quoc in 1994-2007 .6: Coral bleaching was observed in the southwestern of Con Dao archipelago in October, 2005 .7: Bleaching alert graph (based on the 50 km spatial resolution data set) at Con Dao in 2010 .8: Coral bleaching was observed at Phu Quoc archipelago in May (a) and August (b), 2010 .9: Global temperature anomalies since 1880 .10: Coral bleaching alert areas in Western Pacific in summer 2010 .1: Locations of the three Virtual Stations in the Southern areas of East Sea .2: Location of the case study in East Sea .3: Example of Mean Sea Surface Temperature derived from AVHRR products34 Figure 3.4: The weekly SST in 2010 before S-Golay Smoothing .5: The weekly SST in 2010 after S-Golay Smoothing .6: The one-year SST climatology curve of one pixel .7: Distribution of the 2005 weekly SST samples .1: Scatter plot of the 2005 SST (degree Celsius) data overlaid with the regression line, and 95% confidence and prediction limits .2: Concordance of SST values derived from NASA MODIS and NOAA AVHRR products for Heron Island in 2005-2006 .3: Scatter plot of the SST data in winter months (January to April and November to December of 2005) overlaid with the regression line, and 95% confidence and prediction limits .4: Scatter plot of the data in summer months (May to October of 2005) overlaid with the regression line, and 95% confidence and prediction limits .5: Comparison of weekly SST values derived from AVHRR PF and MODIS products in January and May 2005 .6: Sea surface temperature climatology from January to June .7: Sea surface temperature climatology from July to December .8: 12 months sea surface climatology at Phu Quoc .9: 12 months sea surface climatology at Con Dao .10: Location of Observed Reefs and relative SST pixels at Phu Quoc .11: Location of Observed Reefs and relative SST pixels at Con Dao .12: Thermal stress at Phu Quoc in 1998 .13: Thermal stress at Con Dao in 1998 .14: Degree Heating Week from April to July 1998 .15: Degree Heating Week from April to October 1998 .16: Degree Heating Week in October 1998 .17: Thermal stress at Phu Quoc in 2005 .18: Thermal stress at Con Dao in 2005 .19: Degree Heating Week from May to October 2005 .20: Thermal stress at Phu Quoc in 2010 .21: Thermal stress at Con Dao in 2010 .22: Degree Heating Week from April to October 2010 .23: Comparison of SST and bleaching threshold between the 50km (a) and the 4km (b) product .24: The 50km spatial resolution HotSpot map at East Sea in June and July 2010 71 Figure 4.25: The 4km spatial resolution HotSpot map in June 2010 .26: The 4km spatial resolution HotSpot map in July 2010 .27: The 50km spatial resolution Bleaching Alert map in July 2010 .28: The 4km spatial resolution Bleaching Alert map in July 2010 .73 LIST OF TABLES TABLES PAGE ix Table 2.1: Cover (%) of coral and other benthos at 4 permanent monitoring sites in 2007-2008 .1: Location of the permanent observed reefs at Con Dao and Phu Quoc in 1994 – 2007.2: The minimum monthly value of SST at two virtual stations, Con Dao and Tao Island .3: ID and location of pixels chosen to build the SST time series data at Con Dao and Phu Quoc .4: The flexible global tool for monitoring of coral bleaching .1: 12 months sea surface climatology and Bleaching Threshold at Phu Quoc and Con Dao .2: Degree Heating Week (0C weeks) at Phu Quoc in 1998 .3: Degree Heating Week (0C weeks) at Con Dao in 1998 .4: The cover of corals (%) and percentage of bleaching at Con Dao in October 1998 .5: Degree Heating Week (0C weeks) at Phu Quoc in 2005 .6: Degree Heating Week (0C weeks) at Con Dao in 2005 .7: Degree Heating Week (0C weeks) at Phu Quoc in 2010 .8: Degree Heating Week (0C weeks) at Con Dao in 2010 .67 LIST OF ABBRIVIATIONS AND EQUATIONS ABBRIVIATIONS AVHRR PF Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer Pathfinder x CRW Coral Reef Wacth DHW Degree Heating Week MMM Maximum Monthly Mean MODIS Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration SST Sea Surface Temperature EQUATIONS PAGE Equation 3.1: Convert AVHRR SST value to degrees C.2: Convert MODIS SST value to degrees C .3: Calculate HotSpot value .1: Linear relationship between the 2005 MODIS-derived weekly SST and the 2005 AVHRR-derived weekly SST .2: Linear relationship between the summer 2005 MODIS-derived weekly SST and the summer 2005 AVHRR-derived weekly SST .3: Linear relationship between the winter 2005 MODIS-derived weekly SST and the winter 2005 AVHRR-derived weekly SST .45 ABSTRACT Thermal stress is marked as an essential cause of coral bleaching.
Corals begin losing the symbiotic algae and their color when sea temperature exceeds one to two degree Celsius xi above the summer maxima. Thus, monitoring thermal anomalies of seawater has become an imperative need. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has developed methods to predict bleaching based on sea surface temperature (SST) achieved from satellite images. However, the predictions usually underestimate at local and regional scales due to the low spatial resolution (50 km).
As a contribution to improve prediction of coral bleaching in the East Sea, Vietnam, my research examined SST derived from higher spatial resolution products (4 km), including the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS). Two parameters, HotSpot and Degree Heating Week (DHW) were applied to describe thermal stress in historical bleaching years at two archipelagos in Vietnam, Phu Quoc and Con Dao. The major findings include: (1) The difference of SST in the southwest and southeast areas of the East Sea was revealed through SST climatology data. That difference explained the phenomenon of fewer bleaching events at Phu Quoc because coral living in different temperature conditions can have different bleaching thresholds.
(2) Coral reefs at my study area suffered a severe thermal stress in 2010 with longer duration and higher DHW value than in 1998 and 2005. (3) The application of 4 km spatial resolution data prevented underestimating thermal anomaly and provided bleaching maps with more details than with 50 km resolution data. Keywords: Coral Bleaching, Sea Surface Temperature, Con Dao, Phu Quoc, East Sea, Vietnam, Remote Sensing. xii Chapter One Introduction Coral is a common name of a group of marine animals classified as Anthozoa, the largest class in phylum Cnidaria.