Marine Protected Area Monitoring Program Designs for Evidence-Based Decision Making

A review and methodological framework for designing monitoring programs within Australia's Marine Park network, published in 2019. The work analyzes how study design influences the strength of evidence for answering conservation questions, referencing specific design strategies like randomized controlled trials and cohort studies. It was contributed by Geoscience Australia Data and last updated on the platform in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Comparing the strength of evidence from different monitoring designs like RCTs and case-control studies.
• Planning sampling strategies based on concepts like randomized spatially balanced sampling and control site selection.
• Applying statistical methods such as propensity scores to improve causal inference from observational data.
• Structuring expert judgment elicitation to support evidence bases for marine park objectives.

Strengths

• Framework is based on a peer-reviewed publication in Frontiers in Marine Science (2019).
• Explicitly addresses the objectives of Australia's national Marine Park network.
• Last updated on the platform on 2026-03-25, suggesting ongoing metadata management.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Likely contains a review and synthesis of monitoring program designs and evidence hierarchies.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-25 17:30:05.195035; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia