Long Island South Shore Benthic Habitat 2018

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) partnered with the New York Department of State (NYDOS), Office of Planning, Development &Community Infrastructure, contracting Dewberry Engineers Inc. to collect digital multi-spectral imagery and create digital benthic habitat data for the South Shore of Long Island, New York. This process relied upon community engagement in order to help determine optimal flight windows for collection of digital imagery. Local partners provided field logistics in support of ground-truthing efforts that helped inform photo-interpretation and habitat classification activities using the CMECS classification schema. These efforts were important to ensuring the data will support change analysis and habitat monitoring in both local and regional geographies. Dewberry produced Ortho Masaics for 70 tiles covering the area. The orthos were created with a 0.15 meter cell size. The data is intended to be used as an important management for assessing distribution trends of the seagrass resource. The survey data helps identify healthy areas that may deserve special protection efforts along with potential problem areas that require further investigation.<br /><a href='https://opdgig.dos.ny.gov/datasets/1df42c650fce4595bff648e0f5fbcb5e/explore' target='_self' rel='nofollow ugc'>View Dataset on the Gateway</a>