EMODnet product catalogue
Benthic habitat map for moderate-depth areas (30-60 m) south of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Benthic habitats of the moderate-depth marine environment in and around the Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument of St. John were mapped using a combination of semi-automated classification and visual interpretation of acoustic imagery. This work replaces previous NOAA maps by Kendall et al. (2001) (1) for the waters around St. John. The objective of this effort, conducted by NOAA's Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment - Biogeography Branch in partnership with the U.S. National Park Service (NPS), was to provide spatially-explicit information on the habitat types, biological cover and live coral cover of the moderate-depth area south of St. John. This product provides a fine-scale assessment of the status, abundance, and distribution of moderate-depth marine habitats south of St. John. The NOAA effort provides the U.S. National Park Service with increased technical capacity for ocean exploration, management, and stewardship. Direct implications to management measures include evaluation of management efficacy, a spatial framework for improved monitoring sampling design, improved assessment of human-use impacts, and marine spatial planning to support alternative marine protected area boundary alternatives. Rhodoliths (encrusting marine red algae that resemble coral) and sand were the most common found habitats in the moderate depth region south of St. John. Turf, fleshy, coralline, or filamentous algae were pervasive in both the shallow and moderate depth areas, accounting for 74 percent and 92.8 percent of these mapped areas, respectively. Only four percent of the moderate depth area had live hard and soft coral covers greater than 10 percent. The moderate-depth map begins at the optical limit of the associated shallow-water benthic habitat map (GUI:VI004004), also poduced by NOAA for the region, and continues to the edge of the acoustic imagery. The integration of these two maps is possible, given that the same general habitat classification schemes and minimum mapping units were applied to both the shallow-water and moderate-depth maps. That being said, NOAA emphasizes that the differences between the two maps must be thoroughly understood, in order to recognize the limitations associated with using the maps in an integrated fashion. Integration of the shallow-water and moderate-depth maps will provide a seamless benthic habitat map, extending from the shoreline of St. John southward to the 55 m isobath. Both maps are found at https://coastalscience.noaa.gov/project/benthic-habitat-mapping-st-john-u-s-virgin-islands-national-park-reef-national-monument/.(1) Kendall, M.S., C.R. Kruer, K.R. Buja, J.D. Christensen, M. Finkbeiner, R.A. Warner and M.E. Monaco. 2001. Methods Used to Map the Benthic Habitats of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. NOAA Technical Memorandum NOS NCCOS CCMA 152. Silver Spring, MD
Simple
- Alternate title
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VI004003
- Date (Creation)
- 2009-11-01
- Citation identifier
- c03bf4f9-a88d-4184-b202-c1ce1d0b8384
- Point of contact
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Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
tim.battista@noaa.gov or bryan.costa@noaa.gov or nos.info@noaa.gov
Owner
- Access constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
- no limitations to public access
- Use constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
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Source: Kendall, M.S.1, M.E. Monaco , K.R. Buja1 , J.D. Christensen, C.R. Kruer, and M. Finkbeiner, R.A. Warner. 2001. (On-line). Methods Used to Map the Benthic Habitats of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands URL: http://biogeo.nos.noaa.gov/projects/mapping/caribbean/startup.htm. Also available on U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. National Ocean Service, National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science Biogeography Program. 2001. (CD-ROM). Benthic Habitats of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Silver Spring, MD: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 1. NOAA National Ocean Service, Biogeography Team; N/SCI 1, SSMC4; 1305 East West Highway; Silver Spring, MD 20910 2. P.O. Box 753; Sheridan, MT 59749 3. NOAA Coastal Services Center, 2234 South Hobson Avenue; Charleston, SC 29405
- Spatial representation type
- Vector
- Denominator
- 10000
- Language
- English
- Topic category
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- Biota
- Oceans
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- Begin date
- 2004-02-18
- Reference system identifier
- http://www.opengis.net/def/crs/EPSG/0/3857
- Distribution format
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Name Version ESRI Shapefile
1
GML
3.2.1
- OnLine resource
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Protocol Linkage Name OGC:WMS
https://ows.emodnet-seabedhabitats.eu/geoserver/emodnet_view_maplibrary/wms vi004003
OGC:WFS
https://ows.emodnet-seabedhabitats.eu/geoserver/emodnet_open_maplibrary/wfs vi004003
WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link
https://files.emodnet-seabedhabitats.eu/data/EMODnetSBHsurvey_VI004003.zip EMODnet Seabed Habitats Static Download
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
Conformance result
- Date (Publication)
- 2010-12-08
- Explanation
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This data set is conformant with the INSPIRE Implementing Rules for the interoperability of spatial data sets and services
- Pass
- Yes
- Statement
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This dataset was created based on a habitat classification scheme that allows scientists to systematically group habitat types based on common ecological characteristics. The habitat classification scheme used to map moderate-depth habitats south of St. John grouped benthic communities based on four primary coral reef ecosystem attributes: 1) broad geographic zone, 2) geomorphological structure, 3) dominant biological cover, and 4) amount of live coral cover. Habitat features are described by varying levels of detail (i.e. at the major and minor levels), so that users can refine the information depicted by the habitat map to best suit their research and management needs. Every polygon in the benthic habitat map was assigned a structure and cover type within a geographic zone (e.g., Aggregate Reef dominated by Algae on the Bank/Shelf). These polygons were delineated and attributed using a combination of semi-automated classification and visual interpretation techniques of acoustic imagery. The acoustic imagery, which was collected using a multibeam echosounder (MBES), proved to be an excellent source from which to derive the location, extent and attributes of moderate-depth marine habitats. In total, 90.2 square km of the seafloor south of St. John was mapped using the acoustic imagery. Approximately half of this area (43.2 square km) fell within the boundaries of the VICRNM. To date, 93% of the VICRNM has been mapped using acoustic and optical imagery. An independent accuracy assessment was conducted to evaluate the thematic accuracy of the final moderate-depth benthic habitat map. Thematic accuracy was characterized for major and detailed geomorphological structure types, major and detailed biological cover types, and percent coral cover. For publication to EMODnet, SAERI downloaded the data from https://coastalscience.noaa.gov/project/benthic-habitat-mapping-st-john-u-s-virgin-islands-national-park-reef-national-monument/, reprojected the published shapefile to EPSG:4326 - WGS 84 coordinate system, cleaned the data using mapshaper.org ( https://mapshaper.org/) to eliminate gaps and overlaps, and processed the structure to fit specific data exchange format in QGIS v3.28.4. During data processing, SAERI combined all habitat information together for each polygon. NOAA used a habitat classification scheme that defines benthic habitats based on four primary coral reef ecosystem attributes: 1) broad geographic zone, 2) geomorphological structure, 3) dominant biological cover, and 4) amount of live coral cover. For the purposes of the data exchange format, SAERI combined all categories into the original habitat field. As such, original habitat should be interpreted as Zone--Maj_Struct (Geomorphological Structure Types)--Det_Struct (Detailed Structure Class)--Maj_Cover (Biological Cover Class)--P_Maj_Cov (Biological Percent Cover)--P_Coral_Cv (Percent Live Coral Cover).
Metadata
- File identifier
- c03bf4f9-a88d-4184-b202-c1ce1d0b8384 XML
- Metadata language
- English
- Character set
- UTF8
- Hierarchy level
- Dataset
- Date stamp
- 2023-10-30T14:42:26.783Z
- Metadata author
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Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role South Atlantic Environmental and Research Institue (SAERI)
Point of contact
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