Mangrove forests face heightened pressure from human development, which may directly replace these ecosystems or indirectly influence their structure and composition through a variety of anthropogenic activities. As a result, surrounding human communities receive lower overall ecosystem services from the remaining forests, which have been valued among the highest in the world and include fisheries habitat support, shoreline protection and stabilization from natural disasters, and water filtration. Although urban mangrove forests have been characterized as distinct in composition and structure in comparison with their non-urban counterparts, previous studies lack quantified representations of urbanness as well as any inclusion of hydrology or water chemistry, which are important influences on mangrove forest structure, composition, and function. This study uses ground-based and LiDAR measurements of mangroves across urban gradients in Puerto Rico to characterize forest composition and structure. It then tests for the relative importance of urbanization alongside flooding metrics and surface water chemistry in explaining observed variability in forest structure and composition. This data set includes all data and R scripts used in the analysis of Puerto Rico's urban mangroves. Data sets include individual tree species identification and diameter measurements as well as biomass. It also includes summary statistics from LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) measurements flown by NASA's GLiHT program. Finally, data sets include descriptive metrics for study sites such as land cover and land use, hydrology, and water chemistry.

This dataset is associated with the following publication: branoff, b., and S. Martinuzzi. The Structure and Composition of Puerto Rico’s Urban Mangroves. Forests. MDPI AG, Basel, SWITZERLAND, 11(10): 1119, (2020).