## 4 Discussion
These data serve to identify the extent and location of ecosystems that can be used in models to maximize climate resilience benefits. Benthic habitats, such as coral reefs, are highly important to local economies, and these data will facilitate more accurate ecosystem service models that highlight potential value and revenue attributed to these habitats in a spatial context. In addition, the new habitat baseline will provide an improved ability to monitor and evaluate management effectiveness and habitat degradation, as well as to detect and quantify habitat changes that can guide the management of habitat resiliency for recovery and rehabilitation efforts following natural disasters, such as storms and hurricanes. In addition to protection assessments, another important use is to help. Users who have already downloaded these data have indicated their intended use in a variety of applications including GIS trainings, printed atlas-style maps, environmental and climate change education, public engagement efforts, habitat area calculations, diver awareness, dive research planning, and navigation planning. Others have proposed more complex modeling applications, including blue carbon storage analyses, calibration and validation of global benthic habitat products, natural capital assessments, prioritization of climate-resilient reefs, coastal protection modeling, research on shark ecology and habitat uses, and identification of critical habitats, species distribution modeling, and connectivity assessments for fish and sea turtles. Finally, these data will facilitate management planning and produce more effect monitoring and evaluation frameworks through a variety of avenues including watershed management planning, conservation project plans, studies on the impacts of pollution on benthic habitats, environmental impact assessments for planned developments, national reef and sea surface temperature monitoring plans, development of humanitarian aid products, and national ecosystem assessments. A critical part of data delivery is also ensuring easy access and building local technical capacity so conservation managers and practitioners can maximize full utility of the dataset. Trainings are being offered to instruct potential users in the methods used and understand data limitations. Furthermore, consultation meetings are being held with stakeholders and partners across the region to continue validating data and explore different ways in which these map products can potentially be used. Through specialized channels, such as the Reef Resilience Network (RRN), a global network of over 180,000 reef managers, an online course has been developed to train marine managers, conservation practitioners, scientists, and decision makers on how to utilize these mapping products as a toolkit for guiding marine conservation and management decisions. In an effort to improve these maps over time, local experts, partners, and stakeholders are being trained to use an accompanying ArcGIS Online web map (accessible at CaribbeanMarineMaps.Inc.org), in which errors can be identified and accuracy improved through local knowledge where field data do not exist. These corrections will be implemented on a regular basis, so the product will become a dynamic database that improves with each version. These data will also be housed in the Allen Coral Atlas (ACA) ([[https://allencoralatlas.org/](https://allencoralatlas.org/)]([https://allencoralatlas.org/](https://allencoralatlas.org/)), accessed on 19 October 2021), an online data portal that is working to map the world's coral reefs. The ACA is also using PS imagery and is the first effort to provide a consistent automated approach to mapping coral reefs at the global scale. Considering automated global approaches have limitations at the local scale, the primary difference between the ACA global maps and these Caribbean regional maps is that a more manual approach was taken to fine-tune and adjust the automated output at the local scale based on the integration of expert knowledge and image interpretation.