Managers and regulators use the mapped information to select those sites most accessible but least harmful to the ecosystem for location of fixed navigational structures, anchorage of mooring buoys to bedrock, design and placement of entrenched offshore drainage or sewer outfall pipes, and replacement of lighthouses destroyed by fire or hurricanes. The maps show that lime mud and sands are thickest in bedrock depressions. This information is used to avoid outfall installations near such areas and to increase efforts to enhance local environmental conditions. However, the bedrock highs are also those areas where live corals can best be transplanted directly onto bedrock. Where sediment cover is thick, large cement structures elevated above the adjacent sediment-water contact must first be constructed for coral transplantation.
Sediment data are also suitable for selecting optimal areas for seagrass restoration.
Understanding the basic natural linkage among reef vitality, the coral fraction of the sand, and location opposite land masses or tidal passes is also essential to resource management. Variable coral-sand percentages correspond to similar variability in reef vitality and may be a tool for measuring coral health. Carbonate sands in a reef ecosystem are composed solely of skeletal grains of biota inherent to the ecosystem. In Florida, sands are formed in place and essentially remain in place. Intense wave action of storms and hurricanes redistribute but do not remove the sands from the confines of their origin.