Coral abundance on the inshore Great Barrier Reef 1998-2013

<em>Study sites: </em>Coral assemblages were surveyed at two depths (shallow: 2-4 m; deep: 5-8 m) at each of four locations on the Great Barrier Reef off Townsville; Nelly Bay (S19.167°, E146.850°) and Geoffrey Bay (S19.155°, E146.861°) on Magnetic Island and Little Pioneer Bay (S18.594°, E146.485°) and southeast Pelorus (S18.560°, E146.500°) in the Palms Island group giving a total of eight sites. <em>Survey method</em>: Between six and nine surveys were conducted at each site between March 1998 and 2013. Between four to six replicate 15 m x 0.5 m belt transects were used at each site on each survey. The abundance of all hard and soft corals (i.e. <em>Scleractinia</em>, <em>Alcyonacea</em> and <em>Hydrocorallina</em>) with a maximum diameter greater than 5 cm within the belt transects was recorded. Coral were identified to genus following Veron (2000). We used colony abundance instead of the more commonly used metric of coral cover because it provides a better estimate of population level mortality.