Identification of two‐phase recovery for interpretation of coral reef monitoring data

The world's coral reefs are under threat as climate change causes increases in frequency and severity of acute thermal stress. This is compounded by chronic pressures including rises in sea surface temperature, overfishing and decline in water quality. Monitoring to understand the recovery dynamics of corals is paramount to enable effective management of coral reefs. While detailed mechanistic models provide insight into reef recovery patterns, colony scale monitoring is not viable for reefs over a large geographical extent, such as the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Consequently, aggregated coral cover data are utilised in practice and phenomenological analysis directly applicable to these monitoring programmes is essential for reef health reporting. These analyses are especially challenging for assessment of recovery potential of reefs reduced to very low coral cover (