gov.noaa.nmfs.inport:77591 eng UTF8 dataset Office for Coastal Management resourceProvider 2025-12-09T13:40:25 ISO 19115-2 Geographic Information - Metadata Part 2 Extensions for imagery and gridded data ISO 19115-2:2009(E) geometryOnly curve EPSG::4269 Delaware Bay Benthic Habitat 2010 2026-01-15 publication NOAA/NMFS/EDM 77591 https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/77591 WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link Full Metadata Record View the complete metadata record on InPort for more information about this dataset. information mapDigital These data represent the benthic habitat and sub-bottom sediments of the Delaware Bay and Delaware River. The data were compiled by a partnership among the Delaware Coastal Program of its Division of Soil and Water Conservation, now the Division of Climate, Coastal and Energy, within the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control; the University of Delaware; the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary; and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. This project was initiated to better understand the distribution of bottom sediment types, habitat biodiversity, and most importantly, humans' impact on the bay bottom and its living resources. The project integrates the use of three types of acoustical systems: Roxann Seabed classification system, chirp sub-bottom profiling, and multibeam bathymetric mapping. Verification of the acoustic data with bottom and sub-bottom sediments was performed through the collection of core samples and underwater video images. The Delaware Bay project has four principal goals. The first goal is to determine the location and extent of oyster reef habitats in upper Delaware Bay to improve management of these commercial resources in Delaware and New Jersey. The second goal is to evaluate shortnose and Atlantic sturgeon habitats. Sturgeon exhibit an affinity for specific regions within the system, and a better understanding of these areas will help evaluate the impact of dredging and other activities. The third goal is to identify potential borrow sites for materials used in beach renourishment. The fourth goal is to utilize high-resolution bathymetry data to improve understanding of sediment movement and other human impacts on the bay. The layers available within the data download include: biotic, geoform, and substrate. Partners: Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, University of Delaware, Partnership for the Delaware Estuary, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection To support the inventory of benthic habitat classification, extent, and health pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act, the Rivers and Harbors Act, and the Coastal Zone Management Act. NOAA Office for Coastal Management completed NOAA Office for Coastal Management (843) 740-1202 2234 South Hobson Ave Charleston SC 29405-2413 coastal.info@noaa.gov https://coast.noaa.gov WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link NOAA Office for Coastal Management Website NOAA Office for Coastal Management Home Page information pointOfContact notPlanned EARTH SCIENCE > BIOSPHERE > ECOSYSTEMS > MARINE ECOSYSTEMS > BENTHIC EARTH SCIENCE > BIOSPHERE > ECOSYSTEMS > MARINE ECOSYSTEMS > COASTAL theme Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Science Keywords 17.0 benthic biotic coastal geoform oyster reef shellfish submerged aquatic vegetation substrate theme Delaware New Jersey United States of America place DOC/NOAA/NOS/OCM > Office of Coastal Management, National Ocean Service, NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce dataCentre Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Data Center Keywords 2017-04-24 publication 8.5 Earth Science Data and Information System, Earth Science Projects Division, Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) https://forum.earthdata.nasa.gov/app.php/tag/GCMD%2BKeywords GCMD Keyword Forum Page Global Change Master Directory (GCMD). 2025. GCMD Keywords, Version 22. Greenbelt, MD: Earth Science Data and Information System, Earth Science Projects Division, Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). URL (GCMD Keyword Forum Page): https://forum.earthdata.nasa.gov/app.php/tag/GCMD+Keywords information custodian MarineCadastre project InPort otherRestrictions Cite As: Office for Coastal Management, [Date of Access]: Delaware Bay Benthic Habitat 2010 [Data Date Range], https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/77591. NOAA provides no warranty, nor accepts any liability occurring from any incomplete, incorrect, or misleading data, or from any incorrect, incomplete, or misleading use of the data. It is the responsibility of the user to determine whether or not the data is suitable for the intended purpose. otherRestrictions Use Constraints: These data were created for planning and management. Users should be aware of temporal changes that may have occurred since the collection of original source data sets. otherRestrictions Distribution Liability: Any conclusions drawn from the analysis of this information are not the responsibility of NOAA, the Office for Coastal Management or its partners. All content is licensed under the CC0 1.0 Universal public domain dedication. unclassified NOAA Data Management Plan (DMP) NOAA/NMFS/EDM 77591 https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inportserve/waf/noaa/nos/ocm/dmp/pdf/77591.pdf WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link NOAA Data Management Plan (DMP) NOAA Data Management Plan for this record on InPort. information crossReference vector eng; US biota environment -75.6056 -75.16708 38.80217 39.83218 | Currentness: Publication Date 2004 2010 Bureau Code: 006:48, Program Code: 006:055 https://marinecadastre.gov/downloads/data/benthic/delaware_bay_2010.zip WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link https://marinecadastre.gov/downloads/data/benthic/delaware_bay_2010.zip download https://benthic-data-noaa.hub.arcgis.com/ WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link https://benthic-data-noaa.hub.arcgis.com/ NOAA Benthic Data Hub Registry download dataset Accuracy Untested Horizontal Positional Accuracy Compiled to meet 10 meters horizontal accuracy at 95% confidence level Completeness Report Untested Conceptual Consistency These data are logically consistent Bivalve Reef (Oyster, Identified Oyster, and Corbicula) polygons were derived from the bottom sediment map that were constructed by the utilization of a Roxann Seabed Classification System and extensive sediment grab samples bottom sediment map that were constructed by the utilization of a Roxann Seabed Classification System and extensive sediment grab samples. Corbicula fluminea beds were identified on the Roxann output by the occurrence of data points which had moderate to high hardness return (E2) and an anomalously high roughness return (E1), as compared to the adjacent sediments. The sediments surrounding these beds are usually of a finer (silt to clay) grain size, with low roughness and hardness values. The regions where these types of returns were encountered were then sampled with a grab sampler. Several samples (2 to 3 samples) were collected at each station to increase the likelihood that Corbicula would be encountered, if it was indeed located in that region. Corbicula beds can have varying densities, distributions, and bed configurations; hence this sampling scheme was enacted to account for this spatial variability. Submersed Rooted Vascular Plants (Vallisneria Americana) bed outlines were identified through the same bottom sediment map used for delineating bivalve reefs. SRV beds were identified on the Roxann output by the occurrence of data points which had very low hardness returns (E2) and an anomalously high roughness return (E1), as compared to the adjacent sediments. The regions where these types of returns were encountered, were then sampled with a grab sampler. Several samples (2 to 3 samples) were collected at each station to increase the likelihood that SAV would be encountered, if it was indeed located in that region. These SAV beds can have varying densities, distributions, and bed configurations, hence the sampling scheme was enacted to account for this spatial variability. Outcrop areas consist of Cretaceous sediment that is at the river bottom surface (or near the surface, about 1 to 2 centimeters). These areas are scour or erosion zones within the river. The outcropping material consists of highly compacted/de-watered silty fine sand to fine sandy silts, which contain relict burrow casts and glauconite. Outcrop boundaries were derived from the bottom sediment map raster grid. 2008-01-01T00:00:00 The bottom sediment data were constructed using a Roxann Seabed Classification System and extensive sediment grab samples. Data was collected in a gridded trackline configuration, with tracklines spacing of 100 meters parallel to the shoreline and 200 meters perpendicular to the shoreline. This project is an extension of the work currently being performed in Delaware waters by DNREC's Delaware Coastal Program's Delaware Bay Benthic Mapping Project. The bottom sediment point data, which has been classified according to the existing benthic mapping Roxann box plot, are converted from a number that categorizes the point according to its corresponding box (in the Roxann) into a number which reflects the sediment properties of each box in relation to one another. A ranking scale is used to allow a statistical gridding scheme to interpolate between sediment data points, while minimizing erroneous sediment classifications and allowing gradational sediment deposits to be gridded. A ranking scale from 0 to 28 was used for this project, with 0 representing the finest grained classifications (fluidized clay) and 28 representing the coarsest grained classifications (dense shell material). Finer grains are more similar in their deposition environments, such as clay and silts, because they reflect similar current regimes, sorting, and reworking patterns (Poppe et al., 2003). While coarse sediments are much more dissimilar to finer grains, with respect to current velocities, sorting, and winnowing, the finer grains are much more closely related in their sediment diameters that the coarser grains as you increase in Phi size and/or diameter. These account for the close clustering of coarse grained deposit descriptions at the upper end of the ranking scale, while the finer grained sediments show a gradation as you increase in the rating scale.The bottom sediment data is gridded in Surfer degrees 8, a surface and terrain modeling program, using block kriging and a nugget effect. This statistical griding technique estimates the average value of a variable within a prescribed local area (Isaaks and Srivastava, 1989). Block kriging utilizes the existing point data values, weights the values of the data depending upon the proximity to the point being estimated, to discretize the local area into an array of estimated data value points and then averaging those individual point estimates together to get an average estimated value over the area of interest (Isaaks and Srivastava, 1989). A variogram is constructed for the data, and the resultant spatial model that is developed from the variogram is used in the block kriging surface model to more accurately interpolate the sediment data. (continued in next step) 2008-01-01T00:00:00 (continued from previous step) The fitted model was a nugget effect (with an error variance of 21.8%) and a linear model (with a slope of 0.00286 and an anisotropy of 1, which represents a complete lack of spatial correlation).The accuracy of the estimation is dependent upon the grid size of the area of interpolation, the size of each cell within the grid, and the number of discretized data points that are necessary to estimate the cells within that grid spacing. The grid size that was used to interpolate the bottom sediment maps was 442 lines x 454 lines, with a cell size of 44.93 square meters. The nugget effect is added to allow the griding to assume there is very little, if any, lateral correlation or trends within the bottom sediment (Isaaks and Srivastava, 1989). The nugget effect model entails a complete lack of spatial correlation; the point data values at any particular location bear no similarity even to adjacent data values (Isaaks and Srivastava, 1989). Without the nugget effect the gridding would assume that you could only have a linear progression of sediment types and would insert all the sediment types along the scale between two sediment types (i.e. silty fine to medium sands and fine to medium sand with varying amounts of pebbles would be inserted between fine sand and coarse sand even though that is not what is occurring along the bottom. The sediment data is gridded with no drift for the data interpolation, also helping to minimize erroneous classifications. Sediment Classification Ranking Sediment Description: 0-11-2 Clay, 2-33-44-55-66-7 Silt,7-88-9 Sandy Silts, 9-1010-11 Fine Sand, 11-1212-13 Silty Fine to Medium Sands, 13-14 Silty Medium Sand, 14-1515-16 Fine to Medium Sand, 16-1717-18 Fine to Medium Sand with abundant shell material and/or pebbles, 18-1919-20 Coarse Sand with varying amounts of pebbles, 20-2121-2222-23 Moderate Shell Material/Sandy Pebbles, 23-2424-2525-26 Abundant Shell Material/Gravel, 26-2727-28 Dense Oyster Shell. 2008-01-01T00:00:00 Separate data sets for oyster beds, identified oyster beds, SAV, corbicula, outcroppings, and depositional zones were integrated into a single layer to produce a comprehensive benthic cover polygon data set. A review of the bottom sediment raster data sets indicated that they consisted entirely of various types of unconsolidated sediments ranging from fluidized clay to oyster shells. Each of these rasters were converted into a single Unconsolidated Sediments polygon layer, merged together and then joined with the other features (oyster, SAV, etc.) to form a continuous benthic cover layer for the entire project area. As a final step, habitat classes from the Florida System for Classifying Habitats in Estuarine and Marine Environments (SCHEME) were added to the attribute table for this single polygon layer to ensure consistency with other Digital Coast benthic cover data sets. 2012-01-01T00:00:00 Standardized common design elements, cleaned up field content, repaired geometry, and projected to NAD83. 2025-08-01T00:00:00 Source Contribution: A CD-ROM containing a compilation of several habitat data sets collected through a variety of methods. Delaware Bay Benthic Mapping Project 2010-01-01 publication Coastal Program of Delaware's Division of Soil and Water Conservation (DNREC) originator