Habitat Modeling as a Tool to Identify Sensitive Benthic Habitat and Essential Fish Habitat in Support of Fisheries Management

Presented will be a cost-effective method for the broadscale characterization of marine habitats as a tool to identify “sensitive” and essential fish habitats (EFH). The model is driven largely by meteorological and hydrographic data.  The modeling outputs are typically visualized as benthic habitat maps, which characterize habitats in terms of their “scope for growth” and mechanical “disturbance”, e.g. habitat-specific rates and not static features. With this information we can identify habitats, which are expected to be vulnerable to mechanical disturbance and have low resilience, i.e. potential MPAs. Further, with adequate knowledge of species habitat preferences, this model enables a theoretical delineation of EFH. Preliminary findings will be shown and discussed.