Digitised habitat layers for the southern section of the Solitary Islands Marine Park and Solitary Islands Marine Reserve, NSW. Includes reef and unconsolidated seafloor types as interpreted from a series of high resolution bathymetry and backscatter data obtained during swath surveys 2005-2012.

This data presents the results of seabed mapping and habitat classification surveys completed in Darwin Harbour during 2011 and 2013 as part of the Northern Territory Government's marine habitat mapping program. This research is a collaboration between Geoscience Australia (GA), the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), the Department of Land Resource Management (DLRM) and the Darwin Port Corporation. Key objectives are to: - Produce detailed maps of the bathymetry and derived parameters such as slope and rugosity, - Classify the seabed into areas of hard and soft substrate, and, - Produce seabed habitat maps (or seascapes). Key outcomes from the surveys include: 1. Improved understanding of the seabed of Darwin Harbour. The main seabed geomorphic features identified in Darwin Harbour include banks, ridges, plains and scarps, and a deep central channel that divides into smaller and shallower channels. Acoustically hard substrates are found mostly on banks and are associated with rocky reef and sponge gardens, and are often overlain by a thin veneer of sandy sediment. In contrast, plains and channels are characterised by acoustically soft substrates and are associated with fine sediments (mud and sand). 2. Classification of physical seabed properties to produce a Seascape Map for Darwin Harbour. Six seascape classes (potential habitats) were derived using an Iterative Self Organising (ISO) unsupervised classification scheme. These six classes are related to statistically unique combinations of seabed substrate, relief, bedform and presence of sediment veneer (quite often inferred from presence of epibenthic biota).

Coastal features within and adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage area (such as the Queensland Mainland and Islands, Indicative Reef boundaries and Rocks.). Major coral cay features,major and other coral reef structures (as defined by the reef shoal edge) and tidal, drying or emergent reef areas within the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.

We implemented a monitoring program developed by Crawford and White (2006), which was designed to assess the current condition of six key estuaries in NW Tasmania: Port Sorell, the Leven, Inglis, Black, Montagu and Arthur River estuaries. This study considered a range of water quality and ecological indictors commonly used to monitor estuaries. These included: salinity, temperature, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, pH, nutrients (nitrate + nitrite, dissolved reactive phosphorus and ammonia), silica molybdate reactive and chlorophyll a for the water column; chlorophyll a and macroinvertebrate community structure amongst the sediments.

A 12-month program was developed and implemented in order to obtain baseline information on water quality (salinity, water temperature, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, pH, dissolved nutrients, silica), ecological condition as shown by Chlorophyll a, benthic macroinvertebrates, pathogens, and habitat extent determined from habitat mapping. Five key estuaries and coastal waters were assessed in the Southern NRM Region of Tasmania. This data includes sampling from Pitt Water / Orielton Lagoon, North West Bay, Port Cygnet, Little Swanport, Moulting Lagoon / Great Swanport.

Seasonal patterns in the in situ ecophysiology of the common habitat-forming seaweeds Ecklonia radiata, Phyllospora comosa, and Macrocystis pyrifera were investigated at different latitudes and depths in southeastern Australia. We used multiple performance indicators (photosynthetic characteristics, pigment content, chemical composition, stable isotopes, nucleic acids) to assess the ecophysiology of seaweeds near the northern and southern margins of their range, along a depth gradient (E. radiata only), over a two year period (September 2010 – August 2012).

Water quality and biological data was collected from four tide-dominated river estuaries indicative of catchments with varying levels of human impacts to: 1) assess draft indicator levels for water quality, and 2) investigate biological indicators of estuarine health in NW Tasmania. This data includes sampling from Detention River, Duck Bay, Montagu River and Black River

A comprehensive and detailed multibeam sonar-based map of the shelf-break region of the Central Flinders Commonwealth Marine Reserve (CMR). It illustrates the extent that several canyon-head incisions are present in this region, and that inset from the shelf-break is a relatively extensive area of cross-shelf reef. Some of the canyon-head incisions are characterised by exposed reef areas, and these are indicated by localised regions of rapid change in depth. The cross-shelf reef is generally very low profile, but characterised by distinct reef ledges where bedding planes in the sedimentary rock types have eroded. These ledges, often between 1-2 m in height, can run for several kilometres as distinct features. The method of data extraction is based on Lucieer (2013). Three are three classes of seafloor map- one from GEOBIA, one from digitisation and one from Probability of Hardness based on Angular Profile Correction. Lucieer, V (2013) NERP broad-scale analysis of multibeam acoustic data from the Flinders Commonwealth Marine Reserve, Prepared for the National Environmental Research Program. Internal report. IMAS, Hobart, TAS [Contract Report]