HABITATS AND HAZARDS - A CIRCUM-PACIFIC CONCERN

Modern technologies such as digital wide-swath multibeam sonar systems capable of collecting high-resolution bathymetric, backscatter intensity, and side-scan sonar data have advanced our ability to image the seafloor in greater detail. Increase use of such technologies is driven by the need to identify, characterize, and map marine benthic habitats critical of protection for the recovery and sustainability of commercial and sport bottom fisheries (i.e., demersal rockfish, Sebastes sp.). Much of the complex bottom morphology and conditions that create desirable benthic habitat types for bottom fish and other organisms result from tectonic as well as other geologic processes that also cause hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and subarial coastal landslides. Therefore, data collection and interpretive effort can serve a dual purpose of habitat characterization and hazards assessment. We will present several examples of habitat and hazards characterization and mapping along the northeastern rim of the Circum-Pacific region where such studies have been completed and could serve as a model for combined habitat and hazards investigations elsewhere on the Circum-Pacific rim and around island nations.