NCCOS | St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands National Park and Virgin Islands Reef National Monument

St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands National Park and Virgin Islands Reef National Monument

For more information about the project or additional project publications, visit the Research Project Page

This project began in September 2008 and was completed in September 2009. We developed benthic habitat maps for shallow areas (< 30 m) around St. John and moderate-depth areas (30–60 m) south of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. These maps are helping local managers develop place-based strategies to address and remedy specific threats to coral reefs inside Virgin Islands National Park and the Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument. For more information about this projects data contact Bryan Costa or Tim Battista.

Reports

Final Work Plan
One pager
Shallow-Water Benthic Habitats - Entire Report - Original or Small
Moderate Depth Benthic Habitats - Entire Report - Original or Small

Data and Maps

GIS Map

St John BIOMapper: An interactive web tool to view maps and data

Source Imagery (Shallow-Water)

IKONOS: Satellite Imageery of St. John taken by the multispectral IKONOS sensor. These images are in the ERDAS Imagine (.img) format. They were used to identify, delineate and classify shallow-water benthic habitats.
Orthophotos: Orthorectified Aerial photos of St. John taken by ADS40 sensor. These images are in the Mr. Sid format (.sid). They were used to identify, delineate and classify shallow-water benthic habitats.

Source Imagery (Moderate-Depth)

Bathymetry & Backscatter: Acoustic images describing the depth (bathymetry) and physical properties (backscatter) of the seafloor south of St. John. These surfaces are in the GeoTIFF format (.tif). They were used to identify, delineate and classify moderate-depth benthic habitats.
Derivative Surfaces: Acoustic images derived from the bathymetry surface describing the vertical complexity of the seafloor south of St. John. These surfaces are in the GeoTIFF format (.tif). They were used to identify, delineate and classify moderate-depth benthic habitats.

Benthic Habitat Maps: ESRI shapefiles representing the benthic habitats mapped in the shallow-water and moderate-depth environments of St. John.

Ground Validation (GV) Sites: ESRI shapefiles denoting the location of underwater photos and videos collected to produce the shallow-water and moderate-depth habitat maps.

Accuracy Assessment (AA) Sites: ESRI shapefiles denoting the location of underwater photos and videos collected to evaluate the thematic accuracy of the shallow-water and moderate-depth habitat maps.