Benthic Nutrient Recycling Rates in Port Phillip Bay, Australia, 1994-1995

Port Phillip Bay, Australia, is the focus of this dataset on benthic nutrient recycling. It contains chamber measurements of oxygen, ammonium, nitrate, nitrite, phosphate, silicate, TCO2, and alkalinity from various sites during the summers of 1994 and 1995. The data, sourced from the Australian Ocean Data Network, defines solute exchange rates between sediment and water, quantifying nutrient regeneration and denitrification efficiency.

Use Cases

• Modeling coastal nutrient budgets based on measured benthic flux rates for nitrogen and phosphorus.
• Comparing regional sediment productivity based on identified nutrient regeneration rates that vary 3-30 times between areas.
• Analyzing denitrification efficiency based on the reported loss of 63% of potentially recyclable nitrogen.
• Studying bio-irrigation impacts based on correlations between radon-222 fluxes, CsCl measurements, and denitrification rates.

Strengths

• Provides quantified bay-wide contributions: benthic recycling accounted for 63% and 72% of annualized N and P inputs, respectively.
• Includes temporal replication with measurements from two consecutive summers (1994 and 1995).
• Distinguishes spatial variability, identifying four regions of the bay with different sediment properties and flux rates.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect temporal bias inherent to data_gov_au, being limited to summer months from the mid-1990s.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Benthic chamber measurements and radon-222/CsCl spike injection chamber measurements.

Time Range

Summers of 1994 and 1995

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06 27 18:53:53.770271; freshness should be verified

Geography

Port Phillip Bay, Australia