A comparative assessment of coral reef transect survey methods

Abstract

There are advantages and disadvantages in every coral reef transect survey methods that were used in this study. The accuracy in most of the methods used in this study showed the significant difference in all transects. The major life form categories used in LIT and PIT is more favorable due to the lack of dive time for detail coral identification and expertise in identification. Meanwhile, underwater digital photography and video transect are able to identify the coral taxonomy due to the storable recorded data or images and sufficient of time. However, the underwater digital photography method is more favorable because of its cheaper cost than the video transect method. In other words, the cost affordable underwater digital photography method will become more and more popular in the future and will replace the traditional and the expensive video transect method.