###### Abstract  
High-resolution benthic habitat data fill an important knowledge gap for many areas of the world and are essential for strategic marine conservation planning and implementing effective resource management. Many countries lack the resources and capacity to create these products, which has hindered the development of accurate ecological baselines for assessing protection needs for coastal and marine habitats and monitoring change to guide adaptive management actions. The PlanetScope (PS) Dove Classic Smallest constellation delivers high-resolution imagery (4 m) and near-daily global coverage that facilitates the compilation of a cloud-free and optimal water column image composite of the Caribbean's nearshore environment. These data were used to develop a first-of-its-kind regional thirteen-class benthic habitat map to 30 m water depth using an object-based image analysis (OBIA) approach. A total of 203,676 km\({}^{2}\) of shallow benthic habitat across the Insular Caribbean was mapped, representing 5% coral reef, 43% seagrass, 15% hardbottom, and 37% other habitats. Results from a combined major class accuracy assessment yielded an overall accuracy of 80% with a standard error of less than 1% yielding a confidence interval of 78-82%. Of the total area mapped, 15% of these habitats (31,311.7 km\({}^{2}\)) are within a marine protected or managed area. This information provides a baseline of ecological data for developing and executing more strategic conservation actions, including implementing more effective marine spatial plans, prioritizing and improving marine protected area design, monitoring condition and change for post-storm damage assessments, and providing more accurate habitat data for ecosystem service models. s 2021 13 4215 16 July 2021 16 July 202  
vulnerable communities against the devastating impacts of climate change [6; 7]. Similarly, seagrass beds provide a wealth of ecosystem services and ecological benefits valued at over US$600/ha/year [8], fostering high biodiversity, filtering the water column, increasing sediment stability, sequestering carbon, and serving as breeding and nursery areas for important species [9; 10]. Despite their immense ecological and economic value, these irreplaceable ecosystems are experiencing rapid global decline [11; 12; 13]. Coral reefs are suffering from the combined impacts of unsustainable coastal development, overfishing, land-based pollution, coastal runoff, ocean-warming, and acidification [14; 15; 16]. Seagrass habitats are threatened by dredging, coastal development, and runoff [17]. Given the increasing threats facing these habitats and their resulting deterioration, accurate maps are essential for carrying out spatial prioritization models that provide insight into the most important areas to protect and manage in terms of biodiversity value and ecosystem service benefits [18; 19; 20]. Over the past several decades, marine resource managers have routinely relied upon satellite-derived benthic habitat maps to provide baseline estimates at a variety of scales [21]. Producing detailed benthic habitat maps over broad spatial scales has been challenging, often requiring significant investments and the deployment of highly skilled practitioners to often remote geographies where the majority of coral reefs are located. Many small island nations lack the resources and technical capacity to develop accurate ecological baselines to assess protection needs and monitor change to inform adaptive management actions. For countries that do not have benthic habitat maps, global products are the best available option for marine resource planning. While undoubtedly useful for achieving global consistency, global models alone have been reported to be insufficient for national or local-scale conservation design or marine spatial planning [22]. While these products cover broad geographic areas, their spatial resolution is often inadequate for local actions, and benthic cover estimates are often underrepresented.