gov.noaa.nmfs.inport:78518 eng UTF8 dataset Office for Coastal Management resourceProvider 2026-02-09T19:44:50 ISO 19115-2 Geographic Information - Metadata Part 2 Extensions for imagery and gridded data ISO 19115-2:2009(E) geometryOnly curve EPSG::4269 North Carolina Seagrass 1990 2026-02-17 publication NOAA/NMFS/EDM 78518 https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/78518 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 depict areas of aquatic beds of rooted vascular plants located in coastal North Carolina. These areas primarily consist of submersed rooted vascular (SRV) plants, with some inclusion of floating rooted vascular (FRV) plants. To ensure consistency with other similar benthic datasets developed by NOAA, the original nomenclature and definitions from NOAA's Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP) were crosswalked with the Florida System for Classification of Habitats in Estuarine and Marine Environments (SCHEME). The goal of this effort was to enhance the understanding of coastal photic submersed lands and how they are interconnected with wetlands, uplands, and living marine organisms. The layers available within the data download include biotic, geoform, and substrate. Partners: State of North Carolina 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 seafloor seagrass substrate theme 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]: North Carolina Seagrass 1990 [Data Date Range], https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport/item/78518. 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 78518 https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inportserve/waf/noaa/nos/ocm/dmp/pdf/78518.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 -77.0865 -75.4635 34.6025 36.6545 | Currentness: Publication Date 1985 1990 Bureau Code: 006:48, Program Code: 006:055 https://marinecadastre.gov/downloads/data/benthic/north_carolina_1990.zip WWW:LINK-1.0-http--link https://marinecadastre.gov/downloads/data/benthic/north_carolina_1990.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 Attribute accuracy for habitat polygons has not been conducted. Field checks of all benthic signatures present in the photographs were conducted to resolve those benthic features that potentially could be confused with submersed rooted vegetation. The number and locations of site visits were based on judgment of the photointerpreter who led the field verification phase of the surface level sampling. In a second type of surface level work, a grid was randomly placed on a nautical chart to determine the nominal latitude and longitude of stations. These were sampled for species of submersed rooted vegetation and ancillary environmental information. The methodology was inappropriate for accuracy assessment of the remotely based habitat data for three reasons. 1) Any plants within a quarter mile radius of the station's coordinates were sampled and indicated as positive in the field database. Rare occurrences of small clusters of plants would not be mapped from the photographs due to the minimum mapping unit. 2) Navigation to stations was accomplished with LORAN C, which was spatially much less accurate than was expected with the photographic approach. Reference data must be a more reliable source than the data to be evaluated. 3) Some nominal station locations were unexpectedly deep or unsafe to approach or sample and were arbitrarily moved to an adjacent more appropriate location. This could have biased the spatial sampling. Horizontal Positional Accuracy Horizontal positional accuracy has not been established for the data set. National Map Accuracy standards (at a compilation scale of 1:24,000) are assumed as the theoretical optimal accuracy of this data. Accuracy is limited by the accuracy and temporal coincidence of the basemap and the interpretation of the aquatic bed data from photographs. In the case of USGS 7.5' topographic maps, the cultural information is more contemporary (up to 10 or 15 years out of date) than the geographic information (up to 45 years out of date). NOAA shoreline and cultural data (based on 1988 and 1991 photography) are within six years of the aquatic bed photography. The dearth of cultural information throughout most of the study area resulted in a dependency on geographic features for local horizontal control of the photographic data. The aquatic bed photographs were more consistent with contemporary NOAA shoreline topographic map bases (from 1988 and 1991) photography and use of these map bases presumably increased overall accuracy of the vegetation map. Aerial photography is registered by local horizontal control to basemaps in a zoom transfer scope. Reference features are readily identifiable and can be accurately positioned on the photograph and on the basemap. Cultural feature are preferred and geographic features are used if necessary. The basemaps are USGS 7.5' topographic series or NOAA shoreline topographic sheets. Vertical Positional Accuracy The SRV data carries no vertical attributes, and no assessment or measure of vertical accuracy was conducted. Completeness Report The classification scheme includes one class at the Class level and one at the Subclass 1 level within the SCHEME system. All SRV within the study area were delineated, unless flagged in the data set, to a depth of approximately 10 feet mean lower low water (MLLW), deeper than aquatic beds are known to grown in the study area. Limited parts of the study area were not successfully photographed and therefore data for those locations are omitted from the coverage. The photography provides a record of only a single time period so that ephemeral beds not present at the time of photography are omitted. This may be the case for some Zostera marina beds, for example, which can sprout from seed in the late spring and die due to heat stress and exposure in the summer. Zostera marina is a perennial grass which over winters as rhizomes within the substrate. Conceptual Consistency The classification scheme comprehensively includes all subtidal bottom classified for the presence or absence of submersed rooted vegetation. Void areas exceeding minimum mapping unit were mapped within vegetation polygons and are delineated and labeled. Overlay of the compiled and digitized polygons of vegetation included a few instances of overlap with dry land on the map base. This was particularly true for data compiled on 7.5' map bases due to the time differential between the photographic dates for the map bases (typically 1940s for shorelines and 1970s or 1980s for cultural features) and the aquatic bed photography (1985 to 1990). The shoreline moved in some cases. Logical consistency in terms of topology for vegetation polygons was confirmed in ARC/INFO and test plots of the digitized data at the compilation scale (1:24,000) were compared for consistency and similarity of cartographic style with the source maps and were edited if necessary. Acquisition of metric aerial photography: Conventional color aerial photography was collected in several missions between 1985 and 1990 following the protocols described in NOAA Technical Report NMFS 123. Both film diapositives and paper prints were used for the interpretation. 1990-01-01T00:00:00 Compilation of photographic information: Aerial photos were interpreted and habitats delineated on acetate overlays affixed to the film. Field information was used to guide this mapping process. The interpreted photo delineations were then transferred to hard-copy base maps using a zoom-transfer scope to fit the polygons to a planimetric base. Photointerpretation with a Wild AVIOPRET stereoscope. Photographs and data were compiled on a Bausch and Lomb stereo zoom transfer scope at a scale of 1:24,000 on USGS 7.5' topographic maps or on NOAA shoreline topographic sheets scaled to 1:24,000 (original scale 1:20,000). Data is a merge of several coverages dependent on map base, photo mission, and photographic scale. 1990-01-01T00:00:00 Digitization of compiled photographic interpretations: 1:24,000 scale bases were supplied to CGIA by the NOAA/NMFS/SEFSC/Beaufort Lab. These were used to digitize the delineated areas of SRV. All digital files were later compiled into one digital GIS data set. Checkplots were created for review by the Beaufort Lab and any corrections made. The data were converted from a single ESRI polygon data set classified according to the System for Classifying Habitats in Estuarine and Marine Environments (SCHEME) to the Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard (CMECS) 2012 format. This produced separate biotic, geoform, and substrate feature layers from the original input benthic habitat dataset. Each of the three feature layers contain respective CMECS biotic, geoform, and substrate component attributes where an "Equal" or "Nearly Equal" SCHEME value was present in the original data. Polygons for which no biotic, geoform, or substrate information was present have been removed. No other changes to the original polygon boundaries or any other alterations of the original SCHEME data were made during this process. 2015-01-01T00:00:00 Standardized common design elements, cleaned up field content, repaired geometry, and projected to NAD83. 2025-08-01T00:00:00 Source Contribution: Source photography for SAV interpretation (film diapositives) NOS Aerial Photograph Archive 1990-01-01 publication NOS Photogrammetry Branch originator 1985 1990