Brief description
Marine benthic habitat data for Tasmanian coastal waters from the LWM (Low water mark) to 40 metres in depth or 1.5 kms from shore. See 'Lineage' section of this record for full methodology and data dictionary. This data is also available via the Seamap Australia National Benthic Habitat Layer - a nationally consolidated benthic habitat map. https://metadata.imas.utas.edu.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/4739e4b0-4dba-4ec5-b658-02c09f27ab9aLineage
Maintenance and Update Frequency: notPlanned
Statement: Depth and positional point data from a Simrad ES60 120 kHz single beam echo sounder and an Omniliote132 differential GPS were captured using the Simrad ES60 logging software. The raw echo data from the Simrad ES60 echo sounder was used to discriminate habitat type in the Software Package EchoView 3.30. The point dataset was checked for extraneous data, cleaned and converted to point shapefiles using ESRI ARCGIS Version 9.1. The point data was used to interpret boundaries and formed the basis of a polygon shapefile that was generated from the data. Selected aerial photographs were scanned at 600dpi and stored as 24bit colour TIFF images. Each was georeferenced using ESRI ARCGIS Version 9.1 to the Tasmanian Coastline coverage in MGA. The point data was overlayed on the aerial photographs to check for continuity especially in generating the reef habitat polygons. The generated polygon coverage was edge matched to the 1:25000 coastline shape. The 1:25000 coastline was supplied by the Land Information Services Division of the Department of Primary Industry, Water and Environment Tasmania.
------DATA DICTIONARY------
The attribute SM_HAB_CLS contains the full text classification assigned to a polygon. Definitions as below:
• Reef: Any consolidated substrate. Typically consists of rocky outcroppings and may be of any profile or rugosity.
• Cobble: A hard bottom type consisting of small rocks generally less than 30 cm in diameter.
• Sand: The most commonly encountered unconsolidated substrate. It represents the coarser end of a scale of sediments.
• Silt: Common in deeper sheltered bays or the within the estuarine regions. Represents the finest unconsolidated substrate. Characterised in the echogram by a lack of a second echo and often little scatter in the trace tail.
• Aquatic Macrophytes: Covers subtidal vegetated in areas that includes multiple species, that are unable to be separated based on acoustic data. These species include but are not limited to the seagrasses Heterozostera tasmanica, Ruppia sp, and the hornwort.
• Seagrass: Areas of dense seagrass, where the substrate, usually sand, is completely covered by seagrass and the patch size is greater than 20 m wide. Three species of seagrass commonly occurred sub-tidally within the regions surveyed: Heterozostera tasmanica, Amphibolis antarctica and Posidonia australis.
• Ruppia: Ruppia sp. is a seagrass that form extensive beds in brackish water. This species is confined to estuaries and coastal lagoons, and has been separated from the other seagrass species based on it forming large single species beds that are rarely mixed with the other species, which generally occur in more marine water.
• Ricegrass: Ricegrass, Spartina anglica, is an introduced species found in several estuaries around Tasmania, most notable the Tamar estuary. This species is common on intertidal mud flats.
Data time period: 1999-01-01 to 2010-12-31
text: westlimit=144.50; southlimit=-44.00; eastlimit=148.50; northlimit=-39.50; projection=WGS 84 (EPSG:4326)
text: uplimit=40; downlimit=0
Subjects
AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS |
BATHYMETRY/SEAFLOOR TOPOGRAPHY |
BENTHIC HABITAT |
Biological Sciences |
BIOSPHERE |
Benthic habitat |
Biotic taxonomic identification |
EARTH SCIENCE |
Ecology |
Environmental Science and Management |
Environmental Sciences |
Environmental Management |
Environmental Sciences Not Elsewhere Classified |
MARINE HABITAT |
Marine and Estuarine Ecology (Incl. Marine Ichthyology) |
OCEANS |
Other Environmental Sciences |
SEAFLOOR TOPOGRAPHY |
Seafloor habitat classification |
Temperate Reef |
biota |
environment |
oceans |
research vessel |
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Other Information
(PUBLICATION - Mapping the gaps [PDF])
uri :
http://ecite.utas.edu.au/59920
(View and download this data through the interactive Seamap Australia data portal.)
uri :
https://seamapaustralia.org/map/#96b9fd81-8076-4d7c-bc23-60e35d8ad24b
global : 4739e4b0-4dba-4ec5-b658-02c09f27ab9a
Identifiers
- global : 7a6751e0-1ad5-11dc-9e36-00188b4c0af8
