NCCOS Mapping: Bathymetric Lidar Waveform Metrics for Saipan, The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), 2019-07-11 to 2019-07-31 (NCEI Accession 0294340)

This data package contains bathymetric light detection and ranging (lidar) Hawkeye-4X waveforms metrics (LWFM) for 0 to 50 meter depths around the island of Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Bathymetric lidar waveforms depict the amount of laser light returned from the seafloor recorded during each laser pulse. Typically, only the leading edge of the seafloor return is used to calculate bottom depth. However, the shape of the seafloor return also contains novel information about the physical structure and biological cover on the seafloor (Collin et al. 2011, Wilson et al. 2019). To extract this information, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) partnered with Oregon State University (OSU), NOAA Office for Coastal Management (OCM), Woolpert and Hexagon Leica to develop software to export, process, normalize and rasterize 16 LWFM describing the shape of the seafloor return (Jung et al. 2024; Collin et al. 2011; Parrish et al. 2014; Kashani et al. 2015; Kogut et al. 2022). The resulting LWFM rasters were used to predict the distribution of key coral reef taxa and habitats west of Saipan (Costa et al. 2024). This effort marks one of the few studies that have used LWFM to predict tropical coral reef habitats to date. These processing workflows and associated software will also make LWFM creation easier and more routine for future Hawkeye-4X lidar collections by NOAA and its partners. This project was funded by NOAAâs Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP), and leverages significant investments made by NOAA NCCOS, NOAA National Geodetic Survey, NOAA Office for Coastal Management, and the U.S. Geological Survey in the region.

Tags: 31309, 4lkg6e, [characterizing benthic habitats around saipan, [predicting coral morphology to inform the protective capacity of coral reefs around saipan, backscatter, bathymetry, bathymetry/seafloor topography, benthic, biosphere, chalan kanoa (15n145e0012), cnmi, cnmi to support richard campaign], cnmi], coastal processes, coral reef ecology, coral reefs, corals, country/territory, department of urban engineering, derived data product, earth science, field observation, geographic information, geospatial, gis, gyeongsang national university, habitat mapping, habitats, imagery, lidar, lidar waveform metrics, light detection and ranging, lighthouse reef trochus sanctuary, lwfm, map images, mapping, mariana islands, marine management areas, marine spatial ecology, maã±agaha marine conservation area, national centers for coastal ocean science, nccos project, ngs project [usgs/noaa topobathy lidar dem: cnmi (aguijan, noaa, northern mariana islands, nos, numeric data sets, ocean basin, oceanography, oceans, office for coastal management, oregon state university, pacific ocean, predicting coral morphology across space to inform the protective capacity of coral reefs in cnmi, reef monitoring and assessment, remotely sensed, rota, rugosity, saipan, saipan island, saipan island (15n145e0002), school of civil and construction engineering, sinwav software, slope, tinian)], u.s. states and territories, us doc, water depth, waterbodies, western pacific ocean, zoology
Organization: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce