Eelgrass Sonar Transects in Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence 2018-2023
Updated 3mo ago
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Description
Between 2018 and 2023, acoustic surveys mapped eelgrass presence at 48 processed coastal sites in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. Data includes geographic coordinates, timestamps, and submerged aquatic vegetation presence, collected via boat-based sonar transects. An additional 18 sites from the same period have been surveyed but await full processing.
Use Cases
Map eelgrass distribution using geographic coordinates and submerged aquatic vegetation presence data.
Analyze seasonal or annual trends in eelgrass presence using timestamp data from 2018-2023 surveys.
Validate sonar-derived eelgrass presence classifications against ground-truthing notes and underwater photos mentioned in the quality control process.
Assess spatial coverage of eelgrass beds across the 48 processed sites in the Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Strengths
Data spans a 5-year time range from 2018 to 2023.
Covers 48 fully processed coastal sites across three Canadian provinces.
Processing used a defined threshold (vegetation canopy height >= 0.1 m) to assign eelgrass presence values.
Limitations
No independent ground-truthing points were surveyed to validate the sonar classifications, potentially affecting accuracy.
The dataset is incomplete, with 18 additional surveyed sites not yet processed for depth and eelgrass classification.
Positional accuracy varied, with GPS accuracy of 1-2 meters for data collected through 2020.
Provenance
Source
Fisheries and Oceans Canada, in partnership with the Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence Coalition on Sustainability.
Collection Method
Acoustic data collected using BioSonics MX Aquatic Habitat Echosounder units during summer/early fall boat transects, processed with BioSonics Visual Aquatic software.
Time Range
2018 to 2023
Freshness
Last updated in March 2026, with ongoing processing for additional sites.
Geography
48 coastal sites in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia, Canada (Southern Gulf of St. Lawrence).
Data is provided 'as-is' without formal accuracy assessment. License is Canada Open Government License. File formats include ESRI REST and CSV.