Characterizing Benthic Habitats Using Multibeam Sonar and Towed Underwater Video in Two Marine Protected Areas on the West Florida Shelf, USA.

Book excerpt: This study investigates a way to characterize the geology and biology of the seafloor in two Marine Protected Areas on the West Florida Shelf. Characterization of benthic habitats needs to include sufficient detail to represent the complex and heterogeneous bottom types. Characterizations can be interpreted from multiple data sets and displayed as benthic habitat maps. Multibeam sonar bathymetry and backscatter provide full spatial data coverage, but interpretation of such data requires some form of ground truth (to characterize the habitat). Imagery from towed underwater video provides continuous transects of seafloor data, which provide a more efficient method than data from sediment grabs, stationary cameras, or video from slow-moving remotely-operated vehicles while a ship is on station.