IMAS Metadata Catalogue
Oceans Institute
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This record provides an overview of the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub project "Improving socio-ecological understanding of natural values in Australian Marine Parks". No public data outputs will be generated by this project. -------------------- Parks Australia (Australian Government) manage 60 Australian Marine Parks (AMPs) around the country, covering an area of 3.8 million square kilometres, or 43% of all Australian waters. The approach to managing AMPs is set out in eight Management Plans, one for each of the five marine park networks (North, North-west, South-west, South-east and Temperate East) and one each for the Coral Sea Marine Park, Christmas Island Marine Park and Cocos (Keeling) Islands Marine Park. A statutory review of Management Plans for the North, North-west, South-west, Temperate-East networks and the Coral Sea Marine Park is scheduled for 2028. This project will progress the use of socio-economic information to support the management of and contribute to the review of Australian Marine Parks. It will build on previous research funded by the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) to redevelop socio-economic benchmarks to support Parks Australia’s new sentinel park approach and network scale reporting. The project will estimate changes in public awareness, attitudes, and usage patterns since a 2019/20 benchmark - crucial for the upcoming statuatory revoew of AMP Management Plans in 2028. The work will additionally contribute to the overall management effectiveness system by integrating socio-economic and natural values data, together with improved socio-ecological understanding, complementing NESP-led data synthesis projects (SS2, D7, 1.3, 4.20 and 4.21) at both Sentinel Park and Network scales. Approach • A repeatable national knowledge, attitudes and practice (KAP) boat ramp survey will be redesigned based around a survey developed in NESP MaC Project D6. The survey will target recreational fishers and non-fishers who use AMPS around Australia, with nine survey locations to be selected in collaboration with Parks Australia. • A national general public survey will be redesigned to explore broader community views towards the AMP network, including attitudes to AMP management zones. • Surveys are likely to cover the Coral Sea, North, North-west, South-west, South-east and Temperate East networks. Outputs • Responses from recreational user surveys [dataset]. In accordance with National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research, only aggregated outputs will be made publicly available. Please contact the project leader (Matt Navarro) for further information. • Final technical report [written]
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Benthic habitat annotations of stereo Baited Remote Underwater Video (Stereo-BRUV) and panoramic drop camera imagery, were completed as part of a report funded by the NESP Marine & Coastal Hub. This report focussed on an IUCN II zone in the South-west Corner Marine Park off the 'Capes region' near Margaret River. These data were analysed in TransectMeasure using a modified version of the CATAMI scheme.
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Fish annotations of stereo Baited Remote Underwater Video and panoramic drop camera imagery, were completed as part of a report funded by the NESP Marine & Coastal Hub. This report focussed on an IUCN II zone in the South-west Corner Marine Park off the 'Capes region' near Margaret River. These data were analysed in EventMeasure using standard operating procedures for the annotation of remote stereo imagery.
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Predictions of dominant habitats were completed as part of a report funded by the NESP Marine & Coastal Hub. This report focussed on an IUCN II zone in the South-west Corner Marine Park off the 'Capes region' near Margaret River. This modelling contains data from stereo Baited Remote Underwater Video and panoramic drop camera, and was completed using the FSS-GAM package in R. Predictions are at two different scales and resolutions, one using the broad 250 metre resolution Geoscience Australia 2009 bathymetry grid (http://dx.doi.org/10.4225/25/53D99B6581B9A) and the other using a 5 metre resolution Geoscience Australia multibeam survey (https://dx.doi.org/10.26186/145281).
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This record provides an overview of the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub bridging study - "Characterising values and identifying indicators and metrics of fish and benthic assemblages within the Capes region of the South-west Corner Marine Park". For specific data outputs from this project, please see child records associated with this metadata. -------------------- Inventory surveys of Australian Marine Parks (AMPs) provide a broad description of the natural assets that exist in Commonwealth waters. These data can be further explored to identify biological indicators and metrics to cost-effectively monitor the AMPs and inform the AMP Monitoring Evaluation Reporting and Improvement (MERI) system. Historical surveys conducted under the NESP Marine Biodiversity Hub inventoried natural values and ecosystem components in selected AMPs. They developed and tested standardised survey techniques to allows scientists and park managers to identify and measure the status of natural values and ecosystem components. A recent Marine Biodiversity Hub survey conducted bathymetric and visual sampling of key seafloor habitat and fish assemblages in the Capes region of South-west Corner Marine Park (Western Australia). This present project analysed the this data inventory, characterised and predicted the broader distribution of significant features and natural values, and outlined the underlying techniques and processes. This enabled the identification of important natural values and indicators of fish and benthic assemblages relevant to park management and the AMP MERI system. The new knowledge was presented together with a summary of existing knowledge of park natural values, socio-economic values, cultural values, and pressures. Future work is recommended to create national and international benchmarks, and obtain additional survey guidance from Traditional Owners. Outputs • Habitat annotations to (1) AUV and (2) drop camera imagery following nationally agreed protocols (extended CATAMI classification - the Australian morphospecies catalogue) [dataset] • Bathymetry from National Park and Special Protection zones [dataset] • Geomorphic features map for existing fine scale bathymetry coverage of the National Park and Special Protection zones [dataset] • Habitat map for existing fine scale bathymetry coverage (validated from from drop camera surveys for National Park and Special Protection zones [dataset] • Fish and shark annotations of stereo-BRUV deployments [dataset] • Science communication article for the Australian Marine Parks Science Atlas [written] • South-west Corner Marine Park survey report [written]
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This record describes the outputs of two different modelling exercises that were used to characterise the seafloor habitats for temperate Australian waters. The modelled area includes all shelf waters (<250m depth) in southern Australia south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Bioregional benthic habitat maps were constructed using (1) the Geoscience Australia 250m 2023 grid (Beaman 2023); (2) ground-truthing observations derived from horizontally facing imagery from stereo-BRUV and BOSS camera systems; and (3) several physical datasets as covariates in model development (all oceanographic variables smoothed to 250m resolution). Source data is available from Geoscience Australia's eCat: https://doi.org/10.26186/148758 (bathymetry), Squidle+: (benthic imagery annotations), and (3) AODN Portal: https://portal.aodn.org.au/search (IMOS oceanographic datasets). The specific subset of GA observations used in this modelling exercise is available from https://github.com/UWA-Marine-Ecology-Group-projects/nesp-2.1/blob/main/data/tidy/NESP-2.1_broad-habitat.csv. See the NESP Mac Project 2.1 final report for a description of the sampling design for ground-truthing observations and annotation technique. -----Functional Reef model (binomial)----- This model discriminates ‘functional reef’ from sediment (non-reef) ecosystem types. Functional reef is defined by this project as “any seabed area functioning as a reef, which may include dense beds of sessile invertebrates or molluscs”. This term was chosen because much of the continental shelf is dominated by sediment yet is stable enough to support emergent sessile biota that provide structure and resources for “reef-affiliated” species. The modelling approach uses a Bayesian representation of a Binomial generalised linear model. For ground-truthing benthic annotations, the following benthic categories were collapsed into the ‘functional reef’ classification: sessile invertebrates, bare rocky reef (consolidated), macroalgae, Amphibolis spp. and Thalassodendron spp. All other benthic classifications were assigned to the ‘non-reef’ category. -----Ecosystem Component model (multinomial)----- This model discriminates between five broad habitat types (hereafter ‘ecosystem components’): seagrass, macroalgae, sessile invertebrates, bare consolidated substrata, bare unconsolidated substrata. The modelling approach uses a Bayesian implementation of a Multinomial generalised linear model. For ground-truthing benthic annotations, benthic annotations for mobile species (e.g. echinodermata) were discarded. All remaining annotations were collapsed into the five broad ecosystem components. A selection of mapping (WMS) services are listed in the 'Downloads & Links' section of this record. See the 'Lineage' section for a full description of the data packages available for download, and for more visualisation options.
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This dataset presents the results of a seafloor habitat modeling exercise for the 'Capes region' of the South-west Corner Marine Park, southern WA. The model classifies five broad habitat types (hereafter 'ecosystem components'): seagrass, macroalgae, sessile invertebrates, bare consolidated substrata, and bare unconsolidated substrata. Modeling was conducted at two spatial scales to assess the effectiveness of using broad-scale (~250 m) spatial covariates derived from bathymetry in mapping habitat classes and to compare the modelling outcomes with those obtained using finer-resolution input data. The fine-scale mapping focused on an IUCN II zone near Margaret River, using a seamless 5 m resolution multibeam bathymetry composite. The broad-scale mapping covered multiple IUCN zones, including the southwestern Geographe Australian Marine Park (AMP), the northwestern tip of the South-west Corner AMP, and the Ngari Capes WA State Marine Park. This component used the 250 m resolution 2023 AusBathyTopo grid from Geoscience Australia. Habitat maps were constructed using (1) the bathymetry data sources described above; (2) ground-truthing observations from stereo-BRUV and BOSS camera systems; and (3) Physical covariates, all smoothed to 5 m or 250 m resolution, for the fine- and broad-scale mapping, respectively. Source datasets are available from: • Geoscience Australia's eCat: https://dx.doi.org/10.26186/145281 (5 m multibeam bathymetry) and https://doi.org/10.26186/148758 (250 m DEM bathymetry) • Squidle+: http://squidle.org/geodata/explore (benthic imagery annotations - see also outputs from NESP MaC Project 2.4: https://doi.org/10.25959/6G5A-3G03) • AODN Portal: https://portal.aodn.org.au/search (IMOS oceanographic datasets). This analysis uses the modelling methodology developed in NESP Project 2.1, which extended the ecosystem component modelling to include all temperate Australian shelf waters at a resolution of 250 m (https://doi.org/10.25959/BVJ7-D984). Analysing the scale effects effects of spatial covarariate inputs was undertaken by NESP Project 2.3, along with exploration of visualisation options regarding prediction certainty in consultation with Parks Australia (management end-users). Further details on sampling design for ground-truthing observations and the modelling techniques are available in the NESP MaC Project 2.1 Final Report: https://www.nespmarinecoastal.edu.au/publication/improving-seabed-habitat-predictions-for-southern-australia. A description on this specific South-west Corner case study and the spatial scale analysis is described in the NESP MaC Project 2.3 Final Report: https://www.nespmarinecoastal.edu.au/publication/improving-knowledge-transfer-to-support-australian-marine-park-decision-making-and-management-effectiveness-evaluation. A selection of mapping (WMS) services are listed in the 'Downloads & Links' section of this record. See the 'Lineage' section for a full description of the data packages available for download, and for more visualisation options.