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Summary

West Maui Ridge to Reef Area, including the 5 priority watersheds within West Maui.

Short Citation
Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, 2025: Dominant Benthic Structure and Biological Cover Habitat Maps for West Maui and West Hawaii, https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/32811.
Full Citation Examples

Abstract

Benthic habitat maps depict dominant substrate type and biological cover in depths between 0 and ~150 m for two priority sites in the Main Hawaiian Islands; the NOAA Habitat Blueprint West Hawaii Focus Area (WHFA) and the Hawaii Division of Aquatic Resources (DAR) West Maui priority watersheds.

The primary data source for these maps was a 5-m resolution bathymetry synthesis grid, collected from a number of sources and maintained by the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UH) Hawaii Mapping Research Group (HMRG). Geomorphic derivatives of slope, slope of slope, rugosity and curvature were created from the bathymetry grid using the Benthic Terrain Modeler (https://esriurl.com/5754) in ArcGIS.

New optical seafloor imagery was collected by the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) to produce these maps, and seafloor imagery was also provided from a number of partners including the United States Geological Survey (USGS) the Nature Conservancy, NOAA Biogeography group and the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology. All images were visually analyzed by CREP to classify dominant substrate type and biological cover.

A Principle Component Analysis performed in ArcGIS removed highly correlated information from the suite of geomorphic surfaces derived from the bathymetry synthesis grid. This was followed by an unsupervised classification using the Iso Cluster Classification tool in ArcGIS. The resulting image was examined and manually corrected using the classification data from the analyzed seafloor imagery as validation. The resulting benthic habitat map delineates eight dominant substrates (Complex Reef, Boulder, Rubble, Mixed Substrate, Pavement, Sand, Mud, and Manmade) and six dominant biological cover types (Coral, Coralline Algae, Turf Algae, Macroalgae, Uncolonized and Unclassified) that extend from the shoreline to ~150 m.

Distribution Information

  • Zip file containing dominant substrate and dominant biological cover data (shapefile and LYR files) and maps (PDF and JPG) for the Habitat Blueprint West Hawaii Focus Area.

  • Zip file containing dominant substrate and dominant biological cover data (shapefile and LYR files) and maps (JPG and PDF) for the West Maui priority area.

Access Constraints:

None

Use Constraints:

These data are not to be used for navigation purposes.

Please cite NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) when using the data.

Suggested citation:

Coral Reef Ecosystem Program; Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (2016). Dominant Benthic Structure and Biological Cover Habitat Maps for West Maui and West Hawaii. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/32811 [access date]

Controlled Theme Keywords

biota, oceans

Child Items

No Child Items for this record.

Contact Information

Point of Contact
Annette M DesRochers
annette.desrochers@noaa.gov
(808)725-5461

Metadata Contact
Annette M DesRochers
annette.desrochers@noaa.gov
(808)725-5461

Extents

Geographic Area 1

-156.100504° W, -155.822838° E, 20.061727° N, 19.772429° S

West Hawaii

Geographic Area 2

-156.750736° W, -156.587004° E, 21.058597° N, 20.889148° S

West Maui

Time Frame 1
2006 - 2014

External partner seafloor imagery from:

NOAA Biogeography: 2006-2007

Nature Conservancy: 2010, 2012-2014

Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology: 2011

Time Frame 2
2015 - 2016

External partner multibeam data from main Hawaiian Islands multibeam synthesis maintained by the Hawaii Mapping Research Group

Time Frame 3
2012

NOAA CREP TOAD seafloor imagery

Time Frame 4
2015

NOAA CREP TOAD seafloor imagery

Time Frame 5
2012

NOAA CREP bathymetry data