Coral Reef Mapping

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.