Multibeam Echo Sounder User Needs Survey: 103 Respondents Across 69 Entities

A summary report of user requirements for multibeam echosounder (MBES) seabed mapping data, based on a survey and workshops. The study gathered responses from 103 people across 69 Australian and international government, private sector, and academic entities. It was conducted by FrontierSI, Geoscience Australia, and Deakin University for the AusSeabed initiative.

Use Cases

• Identify common obstacles in seabed data sharing based on reported issues like cost recovery and commercial sensitivities.
• Plan future MBES survey specifications based on the 30 specific survey purposes identified across 10 application areas.
• Design data discovery tools based on the reported difficulty users have finding previously-acquired data.
• Assess the demand for data sharing services based on the 73% of participants who reported willingness to share their data.

Strengths

• Based on responses from 103 participants across 69 organizations, providing a multi-sector perspective.
• Identifies 30 specific MBES survey purposes across 10 general application areas.
• Quantifies user behaviors, such as 56% of participants being directly involved in MBES acquisition.

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

Australian Ocean Data Network (via data.gov.au)

Collection Method

Online questionnaire supported by two workshops.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-05 07:02:34.529226; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Primarily Australia, with some international participants.