Seafloor Bathymetry and Backscatter for Cape Hawke, NSW, 2019-2022

A 5-meter resolution multibeam sonar survey of the seabed near Forster Pacific Palms, acquired by the New South Wales government between March 2019 and August 2022. The dataset provides 32-bit floating point geotiff files of bathymetry and backscatter, processed through Hypack, R2Sonic GUI, POSView, POSPac, Qimera, and FMGT software. It was created to establish a baseline and map seabed type distribution as part of the SeabedNSW program.

Use Cases

• Modeling seafloor habitat suitability based on bathymetry and backscatter-derived seabed types.
• Analyzing coastal geomorphology changes using high-resolution 5m bathymetric data.
• Training machine learning models for automated seabed classification from backscatter intensity.
• Creating base maps for marine spatial planning and environmental impact assessments.

Strengths

• Data collection spanned over three years (March 2019 to August 2022), providing temporal depth.
• High-resolution 5-meter grid for both bathymetry and backscatter layers.
• Processing involved multiple industry-standard software suites (e.g., Hypack, Qimera, FMGT).
• Survey conducted under a formal government program (SeabedNSW) with documented standard operating procedures.

Limitations

• Row count and total file size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The dataset is explicitly not to be used for navigational purposes.

Provenance

Source

New South Wales government (Department of Planning and Environment – DPE)

Collection Method

Acquired onboard the Research Vessel Bombora using a R2Sonic 2022 multibeam sonar.

Time Range

01/MAR/2019 – 12/AUG/2022

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-10 20:18:11.353518; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Forster Pacific Palms Cape Hawke, New South Wales, Australia