NOAA Point Shapefile- Benthic Habitat Classifications from Minibat ROV Underwater Video, US Virgin Islands, Project NF-04-06, 2004, UTM 20N WGS84

This dataset contains a point shapefile with benthic habitat classifications of vertical relief, geomorphological structure, substrate, and biological cover for selected points along various Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) underwater video transects in the US Virgin Islands.NOAA's NOS/NCCOS/CCMA Biogeography Team, in collaboration with NOAA vessel Nancy Foster and territory, federal, and private sector partners, acquired Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) underwater video data in the US Virgin Islands from 2/18/04 to 3/5/04. Data was acquired with a towed Minibat and georeferenced and visually interpreted by CCMA employees. Data is in UTM zone 20, datum WGS84.

This ROV video groundtruthing data was collected as project NF-04-06 during year one of a two-year NOAA scientific research mission in the US Virgin Islands to characterize nearshore coral reef habitats. The mission purpose is to better understand the resources within the surveyed reef habitats, and ultimately develop species utilization models linking physical habitats with biological information. The multibeam backscatter, multibeam bathymetry, and ground truth video footage collected during the 2004 mission will be used internally to characterize sea floor topography and to create benthic habitat maps, helping NOAA meet its mapping commitment to the US Coral Reef Task Force. The resulting publicly-distributed data is also a contribution to the greater scientific community interested in the USVI seafloor.

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These data were prepared by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, make any warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed in this report, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference therein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. Any views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. Although all data have been used by NOAA, no warranty, expressed or implied, is made by NOAA as to the accuracy of the data and/or related materials. The act of distribution shall not constitute any such warranty, and no responsibility is assumed by NOAA in the use of these data or related materials.

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These data were prepared by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, make any warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed in this report, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference therein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. Any views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof. Although all data have been used by NOAA, no warranty, expressed or implied, is made by NOAA as to the accuracy of the data and/or related materials. The act of distribution shall not constitute any such warranty, and no responsibility is assumed by NOAA in the use of these data or related materials.

Microsoft Windows XP Version 5.1 (Build 2600) Service Pack 2; ESRI ArcCatalog 9.0.0.535

See ROV Characterization Methodology Report for NF-04-06. Due to variability in camera height, and camera listing and swinging, not all components of the habitat could be recorded consistently. To compensate for potential problems in scale and unknown habitats, each record was differentiated into one of five interpretation classes. The distinct interpretation classes were created based on which components of the habitat were visible. The distance classes (and the corresponding visible habitat components) are: 1) too close or too far (no components), 2) far (only structure), 3) far (only structure and substrate), 4) far (only structure, substrate and large organisms) and 5) appropriate distance (structure, substrate and large and small organisms).

See ROV Characterization Methodology Report for NF-04-06. Time, ship velocity, tow cable length, and shipboard GPS coordinate data were used to estimate the MiniBats geographic position using a layback method. The layback method adjusts the ship's GPS position by the distance of the Minibat's relative position to the ship which is estimated by the tow cable length. Similar studies using this layback method have estimated positional accuracy is within 50 m (CRED, 2001).

See ROV Characterization Methodology Report for NF-04-06.

The ROV video was sampled and analyzed only at 30 second intervals- the seafloor area in between is uninterpreted.

During interpretation and input of habitat values into the initial Excel spreadsheet, a Visual Basic script was used to ensure that all values conformed to logical rules and ranges (i.e. structure types are mutually exclusive, substrate type percentages must sum to 100%).Because of the Minibats's varying height above the seafloor, the area of seafloor analyzed at each sample point may vary.