Benthic Habitat

This project is a cooperative effort between the National Ocean Service, National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment, the University of Hawaii, BAE Systems Spectral Solutions and Analytical Laboratories of Hawaii, LLC. The goal of the work was to map the coral reef habitats of the Main Eight Hawaiian Islands by visual interpretation and manual delineation of IKONOS and Quick Bird satellite imagery.

A two tiered habitat classification system was tested and implemented in this work. It integrates geomorphologic reef structure and biological cover into a single scheme and subsets each into detail. It also includes fourteen zones.