Benthic Habitat Classification Map: Gulf Islands National Seashore

National Park Service

The 2005 hurricane season was devastating for the MS Gulf Coast. Hurricane Katrina caused significant degradation of the barrier islands that comprise the Gulf Islands National Seashore (GUIS). During Hurricane Camille in 1969, Ship Island was breached forming East and West Ship Islands; the resulting breach was named Camille Cut. During Hurricane Katrina, Camille Cut was widened to approximately three miles and the shoreline around Fort Massachusetts was significantly eroded. Gulf waters are lapping on the north side of the fort.

The presence of the island chain prevents sea waves from maintaining their size as they approach the mainland, thus restoring the islands may provide some protection from the next storm. Other reasons to restore the islands include the National Park Service (NPS) requirement to protect Fort Massachusetts, the positive effects the islands have on maintaining a salinity regime favorable to oysters in the Mississippi Sound, and a desire to preserve habitat for migratory birds and endangered species such as sea turtles, Gulf sturgeon and piping plovers.

The Mississippi Coastal Improvements Program (MSCIP) will guide the restoration of the islands. The plan includes directly renourishing West Ship Island to protect Fort Massachusetts and East Ship Island to restore the French Warehouse archeological site; filling in Camille Cut to recreate a continuous ship Island; and restoring the natural regional sediment transport processes by placing sand in the littoral zone just east of Petit Bois Island. The prevailing sediment transport processes will provide natural renourishment of the westward islands in the barrier system.

Few data are available at present to predict the impact of restoration on the substrate, and managing a complex environment such as the barrier island system for habitat conservation and best resource usage requires significant knowledge about those habitats and resources. To provide some input, a detailed bottom substrate map is being developed for the NPS and MSCIP program using acoustic data, associated bathymetry, and other ancillary data within the jurisdictional boundaries of the Gulf Islands National Seashore at East and West Ship, Horn and Petit Bois Islands, Mississippi. Most of the available data, approximately 1191 km within the NPS GUIS boundary surrounding East and West Ship, Horn and Petit Bois, were surveyed using side scan sonar for swath bathymetry and backscatter information (Figure 1, track lines) by the USGS under the umbrella of the Northern Gulf of Mexico (NGOM) Ecosystem Change and Hazard Susceptibility project during the summers of 2008 and 2009.