Data for publication: Geographic variability of floating kelp recovery after a marine heatwave event in the Salish Sea and adjacent open coast

This dataset is associated with the publication: Geographic variability of floating kelp recovery after a marine heatwave event in the Salish Sea and adjacent open coast

Description of the data and file structure

This directory contains two folders, kelp_data.zip which contains floating kelp canopy and bed area data, and temperature_data.zip which contains temperature and temperature metric data.

Files and variables

File: kelp_data.zip

Each year, imagery was collected from a fixed-wing plane (Van Wagenen 2015). For full imagery collection and analysis parameters, see Claar et al. 2025. Imagery was collected annually from 1989 to 2021 (except 1993) for the open coast and Strait of Juan de Fuca sub-regions, and from 2011-2021 for the DNR Aquatic Reserves.

Files: 

kelp_data_AQRES.csv - Kelp data from the DNR Aquatic Reserves (Cherry Point, Cypress Island, Smith & Minor Island)

kelp_data_COSTR.csv - Kelp data from the open coast of Washington and the Strait of Juan de Fuca

Variables:

map_index - location code for each zone, represents approximately 5-10km of coastline within each zone

year_ - the year in which the data were collected

region - divides the data set into the three DNR Aquatic Reserves ("Smith and Minor Island AR", "Cypress Island AR", "Cherry Point AR"), or the open Coast ("Coast") or Strait of Juan de Fuca ("Eastern Strait" and "Western Strait")

kelp_sp - identifies kelp species and measurement type. Canopy area includes just the portion of the kelp that is floating on the surface, while bed area includes the canopy as well as the small spaces between individuals.

tot_ne_can - Total Nereocystis canopy area

tot_ma_can - Total Macrocystis canopy area

tot_can - Total kelp canopy area, including both Nereocystis and Macrocystis

tot_ne_pl - Total Nereocystis bed area

tot_ma_pl - Total Macrocystis bed area

tot_pl - Total kelp bed area, including both Nereocystis and Macrocystis

unsp_can - Kelp canopy area, species not identified

unsp_pl - Kelp bed area, species not identified

cover - kelp area in hectares

File: temperature_data.zip
Files: 

COSTR_AQRES_sst_ssta.csv - Data extracted from NOAA CoralTemp v3.1

Variables:

t - date 

location - concatenation of sub-region and map_index

temp - temperature in Celsius

tempa - temperature anomaly, in Celsius

clim - climatology for that location and day of year. Equals temp - tempa

Code/software
Data can be viewed with any software that can manipulate large csv files, such as Excel or R statistical software.

Complete code for the corresponding manuscript can be found at https://github.com/daniclaar/Claar_etal_2025_EstuariesCoasts.

Access information
Other publicly accessible locations of the kelp data:

https://fortress.wa.gov/dnr/adminsa/gisdata/datadownload/kelp_canopy_strait_coast.zip

https://fortress.wa.gov/dnr/adminsa/gisdata/datadownload/kelp_canopy_aquatic_reserves.zip

Temperature data was derived from the following sources:

https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/product/5km/index.php