Seagrass Cover Habitat Map for Moreton Bay Derived from Landsat Imagery, 2011

4797 GPS-referenced field survey sites were used to train a supervised classification of a Landsat TM5 image acquired on July 27, 2011. The resulting map classifies seagrass cover in Moreton Bay into five percentage categories for waters up to three meters deep. The dataset was produced by integrating satellite image analysis with field validation data and expert knowledge.

Use Cases

• Monitoring seagrass habitat extent and health based on percentage cover classes.
• Validating remote sensing classification algorithms based on integrated field survey data.
• Modeling coastal ecosystem services based on spatially explicit seagrass distribution.
• Assessing changes in benthic habitats over time when compared with newer imagery.

Strengths

• Integrates 4797 field validation sites for training and accuracy assessment.
• Provides seagrass cover in five detailed percentage categories (0, 1-25%, 25-50%, 50-75%, 75-100%).
• Analysis is focused on clear, shallow waters up to three meters depth, reducing classification error.

Limitations

• Data is from a single snapshot in time (July 27, 2011), limiting temporal analysis.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The spatial coverage is limited to Moreton Bay and adjacent exposed regions.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network via data_gov_au.

Collection Method

Supervised classification of a Landsat TM5 image using a minimum distance to means algorithm, integrated with manual delineation and field survey data.

Time Range

2011-07-27

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-10 00:04:44.316989; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Moreton Bay, Australia.