Shallow-Water Benthic Habitats of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands
Zitello AG, Bauer LJ, Battista TA, Mueller PW, Kendall MS, Monaco ME. 2009. Shallow-Water Benthic Habitats of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Technical Memorandum NOS NCCOS 96. NOAA. Silver Spring, MD
This report describes the creation and assessment of benthic habitat maps for the nearshore waters of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. 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 St. John’s coral reef ecosystem. These fine-scale habitat maps, generated by visual interpretion of satellite and airborne imagery, represent a significant improvement from NOAA’s 2001 digital maps (Kendall et al.) of the U.S. Caribbean due to an expanded habitat classification scheme, smaller minimum mapping unit, and more recent imagery.This report consists of four primary components: 1) a description of the benthic habitat classification scheme, 2) description of the techniques used for map creation, 3) an assessment of the map accuracy, and 4) summary of the findings. The maps will be used by NPS and other local partners for planning research and monitoring activities, and will support the management and conservation of the National Parks, Monuments, and other coastal areas around St. John.This work is part of NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program’s national coral reef ecosystem integrated mapping and monitoring studies throughout the U.S. Caribbean (Monaco et al. 2001).For more information on this effort please visit:http://ccma.nos.noaa.gov/ecosystems/coralreef/benthic_usvi.html