Benthic Mapping Report Phase III (2010)

“variability in benthic habitats, assist managers in their efforts to protect and/or restore commercially and recreationally important finfish and shellfish, link land usage (e.g. developed vs. undeveloped areas) and water quality data to benthic habitat quality, and make it possible to utilize faunal data as a long-term indicator of the overall –health” of the estuary. The report developed benthic habitat maps by combining high-resolution remote sensing techniques with environments. In Phase III benthic habitat studies will extend mapping across different reaches of the Peconic Estuary. Four regions (Great Peconic East, Little Peconic Bay, Noyak Bay, and Shelter Island West) were acoustically mapped and sampled. Sonar mapping used multibeam swath bathymetry to generate backscatter images that allowed classification of the sea bed into provinces. Samples for sediment and macrofauna were collected within each province to provide “”ground truth”” for the acoustic maps. In addition, analysis of species richness of the combined Phase I-III data sets indicated that no west to east spatial gradient in species richness exists in the Peconics.