B. Semedi, F. Rahmawan
Indonesia, the world's largest tropical archipelago, is composed of more than 17,000 islands with a total coastline of more than 81,000 km. Coral reefs are found along the coastlines of many islands. Although coral reefs are considered as important ecosystem, the impact of environment such as the increasing of sea surface temperature could bring the reefs under threat. The objective of this study was to forecast stress levels of coral reefs bleaching using night-time satellite data in Indonesia. The study used 50 km resolution composite images of NOAA-night-time sea surface temperature anomaly and NOAA-coral bleaching alert area for the period 2007 to 2012. In order to generate correlation between stress levels of coral reefs bleaching and sea surface temperature anomalies, we observed eight selected areas such as Tegal-Central Java Sea, West Bali National Park, Lamalera Sea, Wakatobi National Park, Tolo Bay, Seram Sea, Raja Ampat Marine Conservation Park and Kei Islands. The results of the study show that the stress level of coral reef bleaching varied from year to year. The study suggests that the stress levels of coral reef bleaching may be explained by sea surface temperature anomalies using the regression equation: Y = 1.1307X + 1.2158.
Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Science, University of Brawijaya, Malang, 65145, Indonesia; YALI-Papua Furia Kotaraja, Jayapura, Indonesia
