Successful restoration of MDBC impacted by the DWH oil spill requires knowledge of the distribution, abundance, and status of these communities and associated habitats. Accurate high-resolution seafloor maps and data on abundance and distribution of MDBC represent key requirements for restoration efforts. Partial information about MDBC can be gleaned from existing datasets. As such, one component of the DWH Natural Resources Damage Assessment (NRDA) called for the creation of an inventory of existing seafloor mapping and ground-truthing data and of existing predictive habitat models. A comprehensive inventory of seafloor mapping, ground-truthing, and predictive habitat modeling data was compiled for a large part of the northern GOM for years 1980-2021 to meet the DWH restoration goals and support restoration activities. Thorough and reproducible data discovery protocols were applied to search a range of data sources including project partners, external contacts, scientific literature, and online data portals. Reproducible protocols were also applied to screen, acquire, standardize, store, and document inventoried datasets. Summary products, such as spatial footprints, were derived from the original datasets to provide simplified, standardized views of the inventoried data across datasets and data types. The resulting inventory incorporated 693 seafloor mapping footprints, 13,722 seafloor mapping tracklines, 20 seafloor mapping derived products, 737 seafloor mapping raster images, 57 ground-truthing datasets comprising 43 feature layers of ground-truthing surveys, and 12 predictive habitat modeling datasets, which included 198 model prediction layers. Despite the quantity of inventoried datasets, there are large parts of the northern GOM with few or no seafloor mapping or ground-truthing data, and much of the study area also lacks habitat model predictions with a spatial resolution ≤10 m. Locations where all three data types exist provide the most information about MDBC, yet in many locations one or more data types are lacking. Footprints of the datasets in the inventory are archived and available online through NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (Accession 0268765). While the data inventory will be updated as new data are collected, it currently serves and will continue to support DWH restoration activities for MDBC. The data inventory has already directly facilitated a prioritization exercise with stakeholders and subject matter experts to refine data gaps and prioritize future surveys, and is currently supporting a gap analysis to quantify existing data gaps and inform data collection needs. These data will also support operations planning to meet mapping, ground-truthing, and predictive habitat modeling requirements, for field work to be carried out by the MDBC project teams to document the abundance and distribution of MDBC for restoration where such information is lacking.

Depth range
0- 3389 m

Mesophotic “mentions”
13 x (total of 19740 words)

Classification
* Focused on 'mesophotic' depth range
* Focused on 'mesophotic coral ecosystem'

Fields
Biodiversity
Geomorphology
Management and Conservation

Focusgroups
Overall benthic (groups)

Locations
USA - Gulf of Mexico

Platforms
Land-based