Great Barrier Reef Hydrodynamic Model Results at 1km Resolution

Version 2.0 results from a 1km-resolution hydrodynamic model for the Great Barrier Reef shelf, nested within a 4km-resolution model. The Australian Ocean Data Network provides this dataset, which was updated daily in near-real-time until January 2024 when river-flow data access was lost.

Use Cases

• Analyze daily water current velocity and direction time-series to model larval dispersal for marine species.
• Study temperature and salinity fields from the model to assess thermal stress on coral reefs.
• Use sea surface height and wave data to investigate coastal erosion and sediment transport patterns.
• Validate the 1km-resolution GBR1 model outputs against the nested 4km-resolution GBR4 model boundary data.
• Incorporate river boundary flow data from QLD DNRM gauging stations to model freshwater plume dynamics.

Strengths

• High spatial resolution of 1 kilometer for detailed shelf-scale analysis.
• Nested within a broader 4km-resolution model (GBR4) for boundary condition accuracy.
• Incorporated multiple data sources: atmospheric data from BoM ACCESS-R and measured river flow.

Limitations

• Data collection halted in January 2024 due to sensor damage, limiting temporal coverage for recent events.
• Specific row counts, column details, and sample data are unavailable for assessing dataset volume.
• Access relies on WMS and HTML formats, which may require specialized tools for quantitative analysis.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Output from version 2.0 of the 1km-resolution GBR1 hydrodynamic model, forced by atmospheric and river flow data.

Time Range

Near-real-time until January 2024

Freshness

Daily updates ceased in January 2024; metadata was last updated in April 2026.

Geography

Great Barrier Reef shelf region