Lānaʻi

Landsat satellite image from NASA

Lānaʻi is located 15 km (9 mi) south of Molokaʻi and 15 km southwest of Maui. Also known as the Pineapple Isle, it encompasses 363 sq km (140 sq mi), making it the sixth largest in the chain. While a fringing reef surrounds the island, much of the live coral growth can only be found on the north and east coasts where the reef is protected from waves by the surrounding islands. Reef growth is limited on the south and west coasts due to wave impacts from summer south swell.

Numerous, high coral-cover reef tracts are known to exist off the island of Lānaʻi and are a popular destination for scuba divers. NOAA mapped one of the most extensive reef tracts off the eastern side of the island, but little is actually known about its overall extent, biodiversity, morphology, or health. A high-resolution swath bathymetry survey, combined with the acquisition of underwater video and photography, is planned for early 2013 in order to develop high-resolution seafloor habitat and reef morphology maps of the coral reef systems off of eastern Lānaʻi.

Please visit this page in the future to see how our work progresses.