Alteration of the natural landscape for development, road construction, or agriculture can have adverse impacts on coral reefs through increased delivery of sediment and pollution to coastal waters. The threat associated with land clearing is higher in areas of steep relief, intense precipitation, and where soils are more erosive in nature. This study uses several spatial and statistical techniques to characterize watersheds across the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico with regard to relative erosion rates and the threat of land-based sources of sediment and pollutant delivery to coastal waters.
NOAA’s Summit-to-Sea watershed characterizations for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, created in collaboration with the World Resources Institute, is now available online:
http://ccmaserver.nos.noaa.gov/ecosystems/coralreef/summit_sea2.html
Here you’ll find the background, methodology and links to the watershed and other data (elevation, slope, precipitation, relative erosion potential) as well as metadata for Puerto Rico, Vieques, Culebra and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
