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St atus

Status

WWF-Canon/Anthony B. Rath

The areal extent of coral reef habitat has not been

fully estimated in the MAR region (with a consistent

methodology and ground-truthing of data) although

some regional datasets have been created from

various national and local mapping projects37. This

database cataloged 96 km2 of emergent reef crest

within the MAR, but did not attempt to classify all reef

areas.

The Reefs at Risk Caribbean assessment was derived

by WRI from a variety of sources including 30 m

Landsat data classified and converted to shapefiles,

and digitized maps and charts converted to a raster

format (500 m resolution). This dataset found 2,315

km2 of coral reefs in the MAR. The breakdown by

country includes 511 km2 in Mexico (22%), 1,422 km2

in Belize (61%) and 383 km2 in Honduras (17%)38.

The Millennium Coral Reef Mapping Project has

produced a preliminary global map of coral reefs,

based on geomorphology. Their assessment currently

includes unverified reef classes (including sparse

coral communities and some areas that should not

be classified as coral reefs).

Data

Data Needs

Detailed habitat maps are available for Belize and

some of the Bay Islands of Honduras and many areas

in Mexico. However, these maps are not directly

comparable due to differences in the classification

schemes.

A current analysis is ongoing to standardize reef

classification for the region and to estimate coral reef

areal extent based on the Millennium Coral Reef Maps.

The Millennium maps are now being ground-truthed

and analyzed in more detail through the 2006 AGRRA

assessment (organized by The Nature Conservancy,

World Wildlife Fund and the Healthy Reefs Initiative).

We recommend that a regional protocol for mapping

reefs be established. Once a regional estimate of

coral reef extent is available, subsequent estimates

can be made for comparison every five years or after

severe disturbance events (e.g., hurricanes).

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