Classifications of underwater imagery of the substrate and coral reef habitat on the Kona coast of the Island of Hawaiʻi, from 2003, 2004, and 2022

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Frequently anticipated questions:

What does this data set describe?

Title:
Classifications of underwater imagery of the substrate and coral reef habitat on the Kona coast of the Island of Hawaiʻi, from 2003, 2004, and 2022
Abstract:
This portion of the data release presents a comma-delimited text file with classifications of images of the seafloor off the Kona coast of the Island of Hawaiʻi. The images were collected by the United States Geological Survey in 2003, 2004, and 2022, during field activities A803HW, A204HW, A604HW, and 2022-615-FA, in cooperation with the National Park Service, primarily in the waters off Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park, Puʻukoholā Heiau National Historic Site, and Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park. The images were classified for live coral cover and dominant type (four coral types, rubble, macroalgae, and two bottom substrate types) manually by a single specialist with a background in ecological studies. The resulting classifications were tabulated in a comma-delimited text file for further analysis.
Supplemental_Information:
Additional information about the field activities from which these data were derived is available online at: https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/fan_info.php?fan=2022-615-FA https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/services/activity.php?fan=A803HW https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/services/activity.php?fan=A204HW https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/services/activity.php?fan=A604HW Any use of trade, product, or firm names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.
  1. How might this data set be cited?
    Logan, Joshua B., McPherson, Meredith L., Alkins, Kristen A., Hatcher, Gerald A., Gibbs, Ann E., Storlazzi, Curt D., and Groff, Sarah, 20250924, Classifications of underwater imagery of the substrate and coral reef habitat on the Kona coast of the Island of Hawaiʻi, from 2003, 2004, and 2022: data release DOI:10.5066/P13ZPWNS, U.S. Geological Survey, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, Santa Cruz, California.

    Online Links:

    This is part of the following larger work.

    Logan, Joshua B., McPherson, Meredith L., Alkins, Kristen A., Hatcher, Gerald A., Gibbs, Ann E., Storlazzi, Curt D., and Groff, Sarah, 2025, Underwater imagery and classifications of the substrate and coral reef habitat on the Kona coast of the Island of Hawaiʻi, from 2003, 2004, and 2022: data release DOI:10.5066/P13ZPWNS, U.S. Geological Survey, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, Santa Cruz, California.

    Online Links:

    Other_Citation_Details:
    Suggested Citation: Logan, J.B., McPherson, M.L., Alkins, K.A., Hatcher, G.A., Gibbs, A.E., Storlazzi, C.D., and Groff, S., 2025, Underwater imagery and classifications of the substrate and coral reef habitat on the Kona coast of the Island of Hawaiʻi, from 2003, 2004, and 2022: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P13ZPWNS.
  2. What geographic area does the data set cover?
    West_Bounding_Coordinate: -156.04800
    East_Bounding_Coordinate: -155.82737
    North_Bounding_Coordinate: 20.03964
    South_Bounding_Coordinate: 19.40682
  3. What does it look like?
  4. Does the data set describe conditions during a particular time period?
    Calendar_Date: 2003
    Currentness_Reference:
    ground condition at time data were collected
  5. What is the general form of this data set?
    Geospatial_Data_Presentation_Form: comma-delimited text
  6. How does the data set represent geographic features?
    1. How are geographic features stored in the data set?
      This is a Point data set. It contains the following vector data types (SDTS terminology):
      • Point (4,282)
    2. What coordinate system is used to represent geographic features?
      Horizontal positions are specified in geographic coordinates, that is, latitude and longitude. Latitudes are given to the nearest 0.00001. Longitudes are given to the nearest 0.00001. Latitude and longitude values are specified in Decimal degrees. The horizontal datum used is D_WGS_1984.
      The ellipsoid used is WGS_1984.
      The semi-major axis of the ellipsoid used is 6378137.0.
      The flattening of the ellipsoid used is 1/298.257224.
  7. How does the data set describe geographic features?
    KonaHawaiiUnderwaterImageClassifications.csv
    Table containing attribute information associated with the dataset (Source: Producer defined)
    Park
    National Park unit (Source: producer defined)
    ValueDefinition
    KAHOKaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park
    PUHEPuʻukoholā Heiau National Historic Site
    PUHOPuʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park
    SiteName
    name of site (Source: producer defined) The alphanumeric site identifier from which the image was taken
    ImgName
    name of image (Source: producer defined) A unique name for the image.
    Lon
    Longitude (Source: Producer defined)
    Range of values
    Minimum:-156.04800
    Maximum:-155.82737
    Units:decimal degrees
    Lat
    Latitude (Source: Producer defined)
    Range of values
    Minimum:19.40682
    Maximum:20.03964
    Units:decimal degrees
    PercentCover
    Percent live coral cover (Source: Producer defined)
    Range of values
    Minimum:0
    Maximum:100
    Units:percent
    DominantType
    Dominant bottom type (Source: producer defined)
    ValueDefinition
    Macroalgaemacroalgae
    Montipora capitataMontipora capitata
    Pocillopora meandrinaPocillopora meandrina
    Rubblerubble
    Unknownunknown
    Volcanic pavementVolcanic pavement
    Sandsand
    Porites lobataPorites lobata
    Porites compressaPorites compressa
    SurveyType
    Survey type (Source: producer defined)
    ValueDefinition
    baselinebaseline survey from 2003 to 2004 time period (field activities A803HW, A204HW, and A604HW)
    resurveyresurvey from 2022 (field activities 2022-615-FA)
    Notes
    additional notes by classification specialist (Source: producer defined) narrative notes
    Entity_and_Attribute_Overview: The first line of the csv file is a header line.
    Entity_and_Attribute_Detail_Citation: U.S. Geological Survey

Who produced the data set?

  1. Who are the originators of the data set? (may include formal authors, digital compilers, and editors)
    • Joshua B. Logan
    • Meredith L. McPherson
    • Kristen A. Alkins
    • Gerald A. Hatcher
    • Ann E. Gibbs
    • Curt D. Storlazzi
    • Sarah Groff
  2. Who also contributed to the data set?
  3. To whom should users address questions about the data?
    U.S. Geological Survey, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
    Attn: PCMSC Science Data Coordinator
    2885 Mission Street
    Santa Cruz, CA

    831-427-4747 (voice)
    pcmsc_data@usgs.gov

Why was the data set created?

The image classifications were used to evaluate the coral cover on the seafloor off of the National Parks on the Kona coast of the Island of Hawaiʻi. These data are intended for researchers, students, policy makers, and the general public.

How was the data set created?

  1. From what previous works were the data drawn?
    images (source 1 of 1)
    Logan, Joshua B., McPherson, Meredith L., Alkins, Kristen A., Hatcher, Gerald A., Gibbs, Ann E., Storlazzi, Curt D., and Groff, Sarah, 2025, Underwater imagery of the substrate and coral reef habitat on the Kona coast of the Island of Hawaiʻi, from 2003, 2004, and 2022: U.S. Geological Survey, online.

    Online Links:

    Type_of_Source_Media: online database
    Source_Contribution:
    Images used for classification, available from this same data release on the Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program’s (CMHRP) Imagery Data System (IDS)
  2. How were the data generated, processed, and modified?
    Date: 2022 (process 1 of 1)
    Images from field activities A803HW, A204HW, A604HW, and 2022-615-FA were manually classified by a specialist with a background in ecological studies. The open-source software, Label Studio version 1.4 (Tkachenko, et al., 2020 ), was used to enable efficient classification of the images using a custom, two-variable classification scheme for live coral cover and dominant bottom type (described in more detail below). The software provided the functionality to sequentially display each image to the specialist and allowed for the use of keyboard hot keys to rapidly assign classification labels to each image. At the end of each classification session, a tabulated comma-delimited text file was generated containing the image filenames, geographic coordinates, and classification labels. At the conclusion of the project all image classifications were combined into a single file for analysis. Person who carried out this activity:
    Joshua Logan
    U.S. Geological Survey, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
    Physical Scientist
    2885 Mission Street
    Santa Cruz, CA
    US

    831-460-7519 (voice)
    831-427-4748 (FAX)
    jlogan@usgs.gov
    Data sources used in this process:
    • images
  3. What similar or related data should the user be aware of?
    Tkachenko, Maxim, Malyuk, Mikhail, Holmanyuk, Andrey, and Liubimov, Nikolai, 2020, Label Studio version 1.4.0.

    Online Links:

    Other_Citation_Details:
    Tkachenko, M., Malyuk, M., Holmanyuk, A., and Liubimov, N., 2020, Label Studio: Data labeling software, available at: https://github.com/HumanSignal/label-studio.

How reliable are the data; what problems remain in the data set?

  1. How well have the observations been checked?
    Attribute values contain geospatial coordinates, as well as image classification attributes assigned by a specialist with a background in ecological studies. No attribute accuracy tests were performed on the image classification attributes. The accuracy of the geospatial coordinates is discussed in the Positional Accuracy portion of this metadata.
  2. How accurate are the geographic locations?
    The horizontal positions for the images acquired during field activities A803HW, A204HW, and A604HW were measured using a boat-mounted autonomous single-frequency GPS receiver, with positions embedded into video format, and exported during still-frame export. These positions have an estimated horizontal accuracy of 5 meters. The horizontal positions for the images acquired during field activity 2022-615-FA were measured using a boat-mounted dual-frequency GPS receiver, with positions post-processed using a nearby base station. The precise times of each image acquisition were recorded in a text file, and GPS positions for each image were interpolated from the continuous GPS trajectory. These positions have an estimated horizontal accuracy of around 2.5 centimeters. All images were acquired either by towing a camera behind a boat, or by lowering a camera below a boat while drifting. The offset between the underwater camera and the position of the boat-mounted GPS unit is unknown and has not been accounted for in the GPS position of the images. Thus, the true accuracy of the horizontal positions is unknown.
  3. How accurate are the heights or depths?
    Vertical positions are not reported for this data product.
  4. Where are the gaps in the data? What is missing?
    4,282 images were reviewed and classified.
  5. How consistent are the relationships among the observations, including topology?
    No formal logical accuracy tests were conducted.

How can someone get a copy of the data set?

Are there legal restrictions on access or use of the data?
Access_Constraints No access constraints
Use_Constraints USGS-authored or produced data and information are in the public domain from the U.S. Government and are freely redistributable with proper metadata and source attribution. Please recognize and acknowledge the U.S. Geological Survey as the originator(s) of the dataset and in products derived from these data. This information is not intended for navigation purposes.
  1. Who distributes the data set? (Distributor 1 of 1)
    U.S. Geological Survey - CMGDS
    2885 Mission Street
    Santa Cruz, CA
    United States

    1-831-427-4747 (voice)
    pcmsc_data@usgs.gov
  2. What's the catalog number I need to order this data set? Classifications of imagery of the seafloor off the Kona coast of Island of Hawaiʻi, HI, are in a comma-delimited text format.
  3. What legal disclaimers am I supposed to read?
    Unless otherwise stated, all data, metadata and related materials are considered to satisfy the quality standards relative to the purpose for which the data were collected. Although these data and associated metadata have been reviewed for accuracy and completeness and approved for release by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), no warranty expressed or implied is made regarding the display or utility of the data on any other system or for general or scientific purposes, nor shall the act of distribution constitute any such warranty.
  4. How can I download or order the data?
    • Availability in digital form:
      Data format: The comma-delimited text file contains image classifications. in format comma-delimited text Size: 0.39
      Network links: https://doi.org/10.5066/P13ZPWNS
    • Cost to order the data: None.

Who wrote the metadata?

Dates:
Last modified: 24-Sep-2025
Metadata author:
U.S. Geological Survey, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center
Attn: PCMSC Science Data Coordinator
2885 Mission Street
Santa Cruz, CA

831-427-4747 (voice)
pcmsc_data@usgs.gov
Metadata standard:
Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (FGDC-STD-001-1998)
This page is <https://cmgds.marine.usgs.gov/catalog/pcmsc/DataReleases/CMGDS_DR_tool/DR_P13ZPWNS/KonaHawaiiUnderwaterImageClassifications_metadata.faq.html>
Generated by mp version 2.9.51 on Tue Sep 30 12:59:47 2025