DEA Coastal Ecosystems

Digital Earth Australia's first national dataset simultaneously maps mangrove, saltmarsh, intertidal, and intertidal seagrass ecosystems across Australia. It uses annual time-series of Sentinel-2 satellite imagery to provide consistent 10-meter resolution mapping at a continental scale. The data supports environmental accounting, conservation planning, and coastal hazard modeling.

Use Cases

• Generate National Environmental Ecosystem Accounts based on mapped ecosystem extents.
• Support State of the Environment reporting at national and regional scales based on annual time-series data.
• Fill spatial and temporal gaps in higher-resolution expert mapping (aerial/drone/field surveys) as a complementary product.
• Model coastal protection and hazards using the mapped distribution of protective ecosystems like mangroves and saltmarshes.
• Integrate with other terrestrial and ocean datasets for broader land-use and marine tenure analysis.

Strengths

• Provides the first simultaneous national mapping of four key coastal ecosystem types for Australia.
• Uses 10-meter resolution Sentinel-2 satellite imagery for detailed continental-scale analysis.
• Offers annual time-series data, enabling monitoring of ecological change over time.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and file size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Freshness should be verified; last metadata update is 2026-06-27 16:35:29.948791.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network via Digital Earth Australia (DEA).

Collection Method

Derived from annual time-series of publicly available Sentinel-2 satellite imagery using Earth Observation methods.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-27 16:35:29.948791; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia (continental scale).