Shallow-Water Benthic Habitats of Southwest Puerto Rico

The dataset is comprised of shallow-water (<30m) benthic habitat maps of the nearshore marine environment of two areas in Southwest Puerto Rico (PR), including the Guanica Bay/La Parguera region on the south coast and the Belvedere reserve on the west coast, which were mapped and characterized using visual interpretation of optical and acoustic remotely sensed imagery. The objective was to provide spatially-explicit information on the habitat types, biological cover and live coral cover of the region's coral reef ecosystem. These maps will be used to support marine resource management and conservation in the Commonwealth. In addition, the maps will enable change detection in an assessment of the effectiveness of restoration activities on the condition of adjacent coral reef ecosystems. This product provides a fine-scale assessment of the status, abundance, and distribution of marine habitats of Southwest Puerto Rico. 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. In addition, the maps will enable change detection in an assessment of the effectiveness of restoration activities on the condition of adjacent coral reef ecosystems. This dataset provides an update to existing NOAA benthic habitat maps (created in 2001) of the waters off southwest Puerto Rico, extending from Guanica Bay in the east to Cabo Rojo in the west as part of a baseline characterization in support of watershed restoration. These fine-scale habitat maps, generated by interpretation of 2010 satellite imagery, provide an update to NOAA's previous digital maps of the U.S. Caribbean1 (GUI: PR004001, V1004001, VI004002) for these areas. Major improvements included:

More detailed maps using a reduced minimum mapping unit from one acre to 1,000 square meters (~1/4 acre),

Increased coverage of areas formerly classified as unknown,

More detailed habitat classification, and

Maps of marine areas adjacent to two natural reserves (Bosque Estatal de Guanica and Reserva Natural Finca Belvedere) in coordination with the NOAA Fisheries Caribbean Field Office.

NOAA used a technique known as "heads-up digitizing" to produce the digital maps, whereby digital satellite images are visually interpreted, then habitats are delineated in a hierarchical classification scheme.

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. 45 pp