Globally gridded hard coral cover (2010-2021) aligned to climate, biophysical and human pressure variables

Threatened by climate change and human pressures, improving models of current and future coral reef states is a key concern for ecologists and data scientists. Here, we compile a dataset of globally gridded hard coral cover and 50 climate, biophysical, and human pressure variables. Using a global 5 x 5 km grid of 54,596 coral reef habitat cells, this dataset includes 8 biogeographic variables (e.g., country, marine realm, ecoregion), 29 climate and biophysical variables (e.g., sea surface temperature mean and distribution, cumulative annual maximum degree heating weeks, primary productivity, dissolved oxygen, cyclones and wave energy) and 12 variables of human pressure (e.g., market gravity, pollution, industrial development and tourism). The availability of an easily accessible dataset of globally gridded coral cover observations aligned with biophysical, climate and human pressure variables that will allow for the improvement and development of new models to predict the impacts of climate change and other pressures on the current and future functioning of coral reef ecosystems.For full information, see: Friedman, W.R.* and Darling, E.S.* An iterative and collaborative global model of tropical coral cover. (Forthcoming).*Equal authorshipNote: The coordinate reference system of the included .geojson file is EPSG:4326 (WGS 84 - Geographic).