DEA Coastal Ecosystems

Digital Earth Australia (DEA) Coastal Ecosystems is a national dataset from Geoscience Australia that 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 dataset was last updated on 2026-03-25.

Use Cases

• Generate National Environmental Ecosystem Accounts based on annual coastal ecosystem maps.
• Support State of the Environment reporting at national and regional levels using the consistent time-series data.
• Fill spatial and temporal gaps in higher-resolution expert mapping (e.g., from aerial surveys) with the satellite-derived product.
• Model coastal protection and hazards by integrating the ecosystem maps with other terrestrial and ocean datasets.
• Monitor ecological change and assess conservation intervention effectiveness using the annual time-series.

Strengths

• Provides the first national dataset to simultaneously map four key Australian coastal ecosystems.
• Uses annual Sentinel-2 satellite imagery for consistent, repeatable mapping at a continental scale.
• Offers a spatial resolution of 10 meters.

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.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the data_gov_au platform's focus on Australia.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Derived from Earth Observation (EO) using publicly available Sentinel-2 satellite imagery.

Time Range

Annual time-series (specific years not stated).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-25 16:55:56.085864; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia (continental scale).