The first global map of tropical shallow water has been created through joint effort of NASA and NOAA. Nearly 44,000 SeaWiFS (Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor) scenes collected over five years were processed to 1 sq.km cells by NASA Space Flight Center using algorithms developed by NOAA for water shallower than 20-30 meters. NOAA is working with the UNEP World Consdervation Monitoring Centre to use this data set to improve the database of coral reef locations used in ReefBase.
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Species items reported in the FAO capture fisheries production database have been classified as oceanic or living on the continental shelf. Catch trends of oceanic species, further subdivided into epipelagic and deep-water species, have been analysed over a 50-year period (1950-99) while statistics for shelf species have been re-assigned to Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) for a shorter period (1990-99) and used to investigate catch patterns among the various LMEs.