Nguyen K.VDuong V.CKieu K.TTran T.VCHO-YING HUANGReef R2022-04-252022-04-25202121678359https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85118473520&doi=10.7717%2fpeerj.12413&partnerID=40&md5=ceab5daad6e37928fba3c14d9fffb28dhttps://scholars.lib.ntu.edu.tw/handle/123456789/606293This study aims to understand the spatial distribution of coral reefs in the central region of Viet Nam. We classified live coral cover in Son Tra Peninsula (ST) and Cu Lao Cham Island (CLC) in the South-Central Coast Region of Viet Nam using the Maximum Likelihood Classifier on 3 m Planetscope imagery. Confusion matrices and the accuracy of the classifier were assessed using field data (1,543 and 1,560 photographs in ST and CLC, respectively). The results showed that the reef’s width ranged from 30 to 300 m across the study site, and we were able to detect live coral cover across a depth gradient of 2 to 6 m below the sea surface. The overall accuracies of the classifier (the Kappa coefficient) were 76.78% (0.76) and 78.08% (0.78) for ST and CLC, respectively. We found that 60.25% of coral reefs in ST were unhealthy and the live coral cover was less than 50%, while 25.75% and 11.46% of those in CLC were in good and excellent conditions, respectively. This study demonstrates the feasibility of utilizing Planetscope imagery to monitor shallow coral reefs of small islands at a high spatial resolution of 3 m. The results of this study provide valuable information for coral reef protection and conservation. Copyright 2021 Nguyen et al.Coral healthCoral reef management and protectionCu Lao Cham IslandDove satelliteLive coral coverShallow fringing reefsSon Tra PeninsulaSupervised classificationcopperlimestoneaccuracyArticlebiodiversitycoastal watersColumbidaecontrolled studycoral reefDNA extractionenvironmental monitoringenvironmental protectionfeasibility studyfinite element analysisgeographic distributionhabitathistogramhumanimageryisland (geological)kappa statisticsmarine environmentmaximum likelihood methodnonhumanphotographyphotoreceptorsea surface temperatureseagrassseashoreseasonal variationsensitivity and specificitysoil pollutionspatial discriminationspecies distributionstarfishViet Namwater pollution[SDGs]SDG3[SDGs]SDG11[SDGs]SDG14[SDGs]SDG15journal article10.7717/peerj.124132-s2.0-85118473520