RECIFS: a centralized geo-environmental database for coral reef research and conservation

Host to intricated networks of marine species, coral reefs are among the most biologically diverse ecosystems on Earth. Over the past decades, major degradations of coral reefs have been observed worldwide, which is largely attributed to the effects of climate change and local stressors related to human activities. Now more than ever, characterizing how the environment shapes the dynamics of the reef ecosystem is key to (1) uncovering the environmental drivers of reef degradation, and (2) enforcing efficient conservation strategies in response. To achieve these objectives, it is pivotal that environmental data characterizing such ecosystem dynamics, which occur across specific spatial and temporal scales, are easily accessible to coral reef researchers and conservation stakeholders alike. Here we present the Reef Environment Centralized Information System (RECIFS), an online repository of datasets describing reef environments worldwide over the past few decades. The data served through RECIFS originate from remote sensed datasets available in the public domain, and characterize various facets of the reef environment, including water chemistry and physics (e.g. temperature, pH, chlorophyll concentration), as well as anthropogenic local pressures (e.g. boat detection, distance from agricultural or urban areas). The datasets from RECIFS can be accessed at different spatial and temporal resolutions and are delivered through an intuitive web-application featuring an interactive map requiring no prior knowledge working with remote sensing or geographic information systems. The RECIFS web-application is available in complete open access at https://recifs.epfl.ch. We describe two case studies showing possible implementations of RECIFS to 1) characterize coral diversity in the Caribbean and 2) investigate local adaptation of a reef fish population in Northwest Australia.