# Puerto Rico Coral Reef Monitoring Program Water Quality Data from 2023–2025

## TL;DR

This paper presents extensive water quality data from 42 coral reef sites in Puerto Rico from 2023 to 2025 to better understand and monitor coral reef health.

## Contribution

The study provides a comprehensive and systematic dataset of multiple water quality parameters from Puerto Rico coral reefs, filling a critical data gap.

## Key findings

- The dataset includes 8,032 measurements of various water quality parameters from 42 sites.
- The data can be used to establish water quality thresholds and improve global coral reef monitoring and modeling.
- The dataset supports spatiotemporal analysis and validation of remote sensing and earth system models.

## Abstract

Coral reefs are declining due to a combination of global and local anthropogenic stressors. While water quality is an important driver of coral reef condition, the lack of systematic water quality monitoring efforts has prevented a more thorough analysis of the role of water quality parameters in modulating coral reef declines. Here we present 8,032 measurements representing seawater temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, pHNBS, Secchi depth, CO2 chemistry (dissolved inorganic carbon and total alkalinity), biological oxygen demand (BOD), total suspended solids, settleable solids, turbidity, chlorophyll-a, ortho-phosphate, nitrite + nitrate (NOx), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), and Enterococcus spp. from 42 Puerto Rico coral reef sites from 2023 to 2025. These data provide a critical baseline for coral reef water quality that can be used to develop and assess water quality thresholds, explore spatiotemporal variability in seawater chemistry, ground truth remote sensing observations, and downscale earth system models to improve global monitoring efforts and projections for coral reefs under ongoing anthropogenic impacts.