Shallow-water benthic habitats of Northeast Puerto Rico (NEPR) and Culebra Island

This dataset provides a map of benthic habitat types, including live coral cover present off northeast Puerto Rico and Culebra Island, a region selected by local managers as a priority area for habitat mapping. The map covers 744 km2 of shallow-water habitats at a high spatial resolution (the smallest habitat features mapped are 10x10 meters) and includes 250 km of shoreline for the region's 210 islands and rock outcrops. This includes the shallow habitats inside the current boundaries of the Northeast Natural Reserves, as well as surrounding areas. The habitat map, generated using a combination of semi-automated classification and visual interpretation techniques of remote sensing imagery (WV-2 satellite imagery collected 2011-2013, hydrographic data collected 1900-2012 and aerial photos collected 2007-2010) and underwater videos (2013-2014), represents the first digital map that describes nearly 100% of the seafloor in the study area. This work updates previous NOAA maps generated by Kendall et al. (2001), which covered 22% of the mapped region (78% of the study area was not previously mapped). The new fine-scale habitat map provides spatially-explicit information on habitat types, biological cover, and live coral cover extending over a large and biologically complex area. This work was conducted by NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science in collaboration with the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources of Puerto Rico (DRNA) and the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) Mayaguez.

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.

Alternate title: PR004003

Date (Creation): 2015-01-01

Citation identifier: code

Credit: Kagesten, G., W. Sautter, K. Edwards, B. Costa, L. Kracker, and T. Battista. 2015. Shallow-water benthic habitats of Northeast Puerto Rico and Culebra Island. NOAA Technical Memorandum NOS NCCOS 200. Silver Spring, MD. 112 pp. https://doi.org/10.7289/V5Z899FH Data obtained from https://coastalscience.noaa.gov/project/benthic-habitat-mapping-northeast-puerto-rico-culebra/

Point of contact

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 tim.battista@noaa.gov or john.christensen@noaa.gov or nos.info@noaa.gov john.christensen@noaa.gov tim.battista@noaa.gov or john.christensen@noaa.gov or nos.info@noaa.gov nos.info@noaa.gov	Owner

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

GEMET - Concepts, version 4.1.3

Access constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: no limitations to public access

Use constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Please cite: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Centers For Coastal and Ocean Science, Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment, Biogeography Branch

Spatial representation type: Vector

Denominator: 6000

Language: English

Topic category

Biota
Oceans

Begin date: 2013-03-01

End date: 2015-09-30 Now

Reference system identifier: http://www.opengis.net/def/crs/EPSG/0/3857

Distribution format

Name	Version
ESRI Shapefile	1
GML	3.2.1

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
OGC:WMS	https://ows.emodnet-seabedhabitats.eu/geoserver/emodnet_view_maplibrary/wms	pr004003
OGC:WFS	https://ows.emodnet-seabedhabitats.eu/geoserver/emodnet_open_maplibrary/wfs	pr004003
WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link	https://files.emodnet-seabedhabitats.eu/data/EMODnetSBHsurvey_PR004003.zip	EMODnet Seabed Habitats Static Download

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Conformance result

Date (Publication): 2010-12-08

Explanation: This data set is conformant with the INSPIRE Implementing Rules for the interoperability of spatial data sets and services

Pass: Yes

Statement: This map was developed by NOAA using a semi-automated habitat mapping approach which compensates for varying localized conditions. The waters around NEPR are often turbid, which limits aerial photo and satellite collections. Although hydrographic data was available in the project area, its spatial resolution varied from regions with high resolution multibeam sonar and Lidar data, to areas with very sparse data coverage (some areas had not been mapped since the early lead line surveys conducted in the beginning of the 20th century). To meet these challenges, a new multi-resolution depth model was developed for the region using geostatistical modelling that incorporated all the available data, as well as a high resolution seafloor mosaic (i.e. Worldview-2 satellite data collected from 2011-2013). The UPR and the Caribbean Coastal Ocean Observation System (CariCOOS) contributed by developing a new high resolution oceanographic model of the area with wave height and current data. Four types of primary data sources formed the framework of NOAA's mapping efforts: (1) hydrographic data spanning the 20th century (1900-2013), (2) Worldview-2 satellite imagery (2011-2013), (3) aerial photographs (2007, 2010) and (4) underwater video and photos (2013, 2014). The satellite imagery and the aerial photographs were collected with passive photo sensors that recorded the sunlight (near infrared and visual spectrum) reflected by atmosphere, land, water and seafloor. The hydrographic data consisted of historical data (lead soundings and single-beam soundings) as well as modern high resolution data (Lidar and multibeam sonar), which were combined into one multi-resolution bathymetry model (seafloor terrain/depth model). The satellite imagery and the bathymetry model were then combined to segment all visible Open Water benthic habitat features using feature extraction algorithms, while the aerial photographs were used to manually digitize the shore complex areas. The underwater video was used to ground truth the remote sensing data and extract additional ecological data. For further information on specific data creation methods, see "Kagesten, G., W. Sautter, K. Edwards, B. Costa, L. Kracker, and T. Battista. 2015. Shallow-water benthic habitats of Northeast Puerto Rico and Culebra Island. NOAA Technical Memorandum NOS NCCOS 200. Silver Spring, MD. 112 pp. https://doi.org/10.7289/V5Z899FH."

For publication to EMODnet, SAERI downloaded the data from https://coastalscience.noaa.gov/project/benthic-habitat-mapping-northeast-puerto-rico-culebra/, 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 benthiC classification information together for each polygon.

Information for interpreting ORIG_HAB column:

Habitat(Simple)-Zone- M_Struct(Geomorphological Structure)- D_Struct(Detailed Structure)- P_Hard(% Cover of D_Struct)- M_Cover(Biological Cover)- P_Cover(Biological % Cover)- P_Coral(% Live Coral Cover)- T_Complex(Topographic Complexity)- D_Coral(Dominant Coral)

Metadata

File identifier: f892e658-8465-4758-ae7a-e1dc4e9152fa XML

Metadata language: English

Character set: UTF8

Hierarchy level: Dataset

Date stamp: 2023-10-30T13:57:58.986Z

Metadata author

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
South Atlantic Environmental and Research Institue (SAERI)		info@saeri.ac info@saeri.ac.fk	Point of contact

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