Department of Commerce (DOC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Ocean Service (NOS), Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment (CCMA), Biogeography Branch 2007 vector digital data Silver Spring, MD NOAA's Ocean Service, National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) Please cite NOAA/NOS/NCCOS/CCMA/Biogeography Branch when using this dataset. http://ccma.nos.noaa.gov/ecosystems/coralreef/usvi_nps.aspx Department of Commerce (DOC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Ocean Service (NOS), National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS), Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment (CCMA), Biogeography Branch 2007 document Silver Spring, MD National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Ocean Service (NOS), Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment (CCMA), Biogeography Branch This shapefile denotes the location of underwater photos and/or video that were collected by NOAA scientists using a drop camera system. For more information about this drop camera system, see: http://ccma.nos.noaa.gov/products/biogeography/usvi_nps/camera.html. Photos and/or video were collected between 04/14/2007 and 04/24/2007 at 84 locations around Isla de Mona in Puerto Rico and west of Mayaguez, Puerto Rico in the U.S. Caribbean. These photos and videos will be manually classified into different habitat classes, and integrated with the abiotic data collected by the acoustic sonar (sound navigation and ranging) systems to develop a benthic habitat map for the U.S. Caribbean. Habitat maps describe the location of habitat features (in relation to the shoreline), their physical composition and the types of organisms that colonize them. Fundamentally, habitat maps provide critical information about the extent, health and composition of marine resources, which is vita l for communicating information about the distribution and abundance of species to resource managers, scientists and the public. Habitat maps also support an increasing number of landscape ecology studies, as well as the process of marine spatial planning, including the design and evaluation of marine protected areas (MPAs). The objective of this ground validation (GV) effort, conducted by NOAA's Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment Biogeography Branch, in collaboration with multiple federal, state, territory, academic and private sector partners, was to acquire spatially-explicit information about the geomorphological structure, biological cover and live coral cover of the seafloor in the U.S. Caribbean. Extensive field work is needed to create high-quality benthic habitat maps because it enhances the accuracy of habitat attribution and (to a lesser degree) habitat delineation. Consequently, ground validation locations were targeted by the cartographer to satisfy the following objectives: (1) Explore features in the imagery with unknown or confusing acoustic signatures; (2) Confirm that the habitat type correlated with a particular acoustic signature remained consistent throughout the entire study area. This information will be incorporated into a fine-scale assessment of the statu s, abundance, and distribution of marine habitats in the U.S. Caribbean. 20070414 20070424 ground condition Complete None planned -67.960 -67.380 18.267 18.032 None coral reef benthic habitats reef zone geomorphological structure biological cover ground validation ground truthing transect underwater video underwater photography ISO 19115 Topic Category imageryBaseMapsEarthCover 010 CoRIS Discovery Thesaurus Geographic Information > Habitats CoRIS Theme Thesaurus EARTH SCIENCE > Biosphere > Zoology > Corals > Reef Monitoring and Assessment > Mapping > Habitat Mapping None United States U.S. Caribbean Puerto Rico CoRIS Place Thesaurus OCEAN BASIN > Atlantic Ocean > Caribbean Sea /North Atlantic Ocean > Puerto Rico > Puerto Rico (18N066W0000) COUNTRY/TERRITORY > United States of America > Puerto Rico > Puerto Rico (18N066W0000) CoRIS Region PR Please cite any use of this data. Note: NOT TO BE USED FOR NAVIGATION. These data were prepared by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, make any warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed in this report, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference therein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. Any views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. Although all data have been used by NOAA, no warranty, expressed or implied, is made by NOAA as to the accuracy of the data and /or related materials. The act of distribution shall not constitute any such warranty, and no responsibility is assumed by NOAA in the use of these data or related materials. Department of Commerce (DOC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Ocean Service (NOS), Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment (CCMA), Biogeography Branch Project Manager - Seafloor Characterization of the U.S. Caribbean mailing and physical address

1305 East West Highway, N-SCI-1, SSMC 4, 9th Floor

Silver Spring MD 20910 USA (301) 713-3028 (301) 713-4384 Contact info is for CCMA general reception. Please ask for current project manager of Seafloor Characterization of the U.S. Caribbean project Microsoft Windows XP Version 5.1 (Build 2600) Service Pack 3; ESRI ArcCatalog 9.3.1.3000 The records in this data layer were automatically acquired by the GPS units and are expected to be correct. None. This shapefile includes all the locations visited during this mission. None. Department of Commerce (DOC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Ocean Service (NOS), Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment (CCMA), Biogeography Branch Unpublished material GPS and USBL (Ultrashort baseline) data 2007 ground condition None. GPS and USBL (Ultrashort baseline) data A first draft benthic habitat map was generated by delineating features on the seafloor with discrete acoustic signatures. During the creation of this first draft map, the cartographer placed discrete points on or lines intersecting features in the map that had unknown acoustic signatures. Points were also placed on features with known acoustic signatures (evenly distributed throughout the geographic extent of the map) to confirm that the habitats associated with these signatures remained consistent through the area of interest. These two types of points were labeled as "ground validation" sites and were visited in the field. 2007 NOAA/NOS/NCCOS/CCMA Biogeography Branch Project Manager - Seafloor Characterization of the U.S. Caribbean mailing and physical address

1305 East West Highway, N-SCI-1, SSMC 4, 9th Floor

Silver Spring MD 20910 USA (301) 713-3028 (301) 713-4384 Contact info is for CCMA general reception. Please ask for current project manager of Seafloor Characterization of the U.S. Caribbean. NOAA scientists explored these ground validation locations in situ using a drop camera system. For more information about this drop camera system, see: http://ccma.nos.noaa.gov/products/biogeography/ usvi_nps/camera.html. The resulting positional, video and photographic information was processed and will be used to classify each distinct habitat polygon to create a map of the seafloor in the U.S. Caribbean. 2007 NOAA/NOS/NCCOS/CCMA Biogeography Branch Project Manager - Seafloor Characterization of the U.S. Caribbean mailing and physical address

1305 East West Highway, N-SCI-1, SSMC 4, 9th Floor

Silver Spring MD 20910 USA (301) 713-3028 (301) 713-4384 Contact info is for CCMA general reception. Please ask for current project manager of Seafloor Characterization of the U.S. Caribbean. Vector String 84 Universal Transverse Mercator 19 0.999600 -63.000000 0.000000 500000.000000 0.000000 Coordinate Pair 0.000100 0.000100 meters North American Datum of 1983 Geodetic Reference System 80 6378137.000000 298.257222 DropCamera_2007_Transects_Lines Shapefile attribute table None FID Internal feature number. ESRI Sequential unique whole numbers that are automatically generated. Shape Feature geometry. ESRI Coordinates defining the features. Dive Sequential order of the GV dives. NOAA Alphanumeric value assigned to each dive. Year Year in which the underwater photos and video were collected NOAA 2007 2007 Department of Commerce (DOC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Ocean Service (NOS), Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment (CCMA), Biogeography Branch Project Manager - Seafloor Characterization of the U.S. Caribbean mailing and physical address

1305 East West Highway, N-SCI-1, SSMC 4, 9th Floor

Silver Spring MD 20910 USA (301) 713-3028 (301) 713-4384 Contact info is for CCMA general reception. Please ask for current project manager of Seafloor Characterization of the U.S. Caribbean. Downloadable Data The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) Biogeography Branch does not guarantee the accuracy of the geographic features or attributes. ESRI Shapefile http://coastalscience.noaa.gov/datasets/ccma/biogeo/usvi_nps/2007/ROV/dropcamera_2007_lines.zip None Contact NOAA for distribution options (see Distributor). 20121220 20101208 Department of Commerce (DOC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Ocean Service (NOS), Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment (CCMA), Biogeography Branch Project Manager - Seafloor Characterization of the U.S. Caribbean Project Manager - Seafloor Characterization of the U.S. Caribbean mailing and physical address

1305 East West Highway, N-SCI-1, SSMC 4, 9th Floor

Silver Spring MD 20910 USA (301) 713-3028 (301) 713-4384 Contact info is for CCMA general reception. Please ask for current project manager of Seafloor Characterization of the U.S. Caribbean. FGDC Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata FGDC-STD-001-1998 Local Time 20101208071931 None 20070414 20070424 http://www.coris.noaa.gov/metadata/records/html/metadata_2007_dropcamera_lines.html 6101