Moderate-depth benthic habitats of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands

"This report describes the creation and assessment of a moderate-depth benthic habitat map for the Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument (VICRNM) south of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. The objective of this effort, conducted by NOAA's Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment's Biogeography Branch in partnership with the U.S. National Park Service (NPS), was to provide spatially-explicit information describing the moderate-depth (30 - 60 m) benthic habitat types and live coral cover present in and around VICRNM's southern boundaries. The resulting fine-scale habitat map, generated using a combination of semi-automated classification and visual interpretation techniques, represents the first acoustically-generated digital map of these moderate-depth areas. This report consists of three primary components: 1) a description of the classification scheme used to categorize the different seafloor habitats, 2) a discussion of the techniques used to create the habitat map, and 3) an assessment of the habitat map's thematic accuracies. This habitat map will be used by the U.S. National Park Service and other local partners for planning research and monitoring activities, and will support the management and conservation of St. John's VICRNM"--Page i.