NESP MaC Project 1.13 - Synthesizing three decades of seagrass spatial data from Torres St

Three decades of seagrass distribution and species composition data from the 1980s onward, compiled for the Gulf of Carpentaria and Torres Strait. The dataset was created by the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub and James Cook University (JCU) in 2021-2022 to support environmental management. It provides a spatial resource for understanding habitat changes and risks to dugong and turtle populations.

Use Cases

• Identify key seagrass habitats and migration corridors for dugong and turtles based on compiled spatial data.
• Pinpoint regions with deficient seagrass information to guide future research based on knowledge gap analysis.
• Model exposure to environmental risks like water quality and climate change based on synthesized historical data.
• Develop long-term monitoring and management plans for seagrass meadows based on validated distribution maps.

Strengths

• Integrates seagrass data collected since the 1980s, providing a multi-decade perspective.
• Focuses on the Gulf of Carpentaria and Torres Strait, a region with globally significant seagrass habitat.
• Aims to compile and validate disparate historical data into a single publicly available resource.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale analysis.
• Data location and storage from historical efforts were described as disparate and sometimes lost, which may affect completeness.

Provenance

Source

NESP Marine and Coastal Hub, James Cook University (JCU), via the Australian Ocean Data Network.

Collection Method

Compilation, validation, and synthesis of historical seagrass spatial data from various sources.

Time Range

Data collected since the 1980s, synthesized in 2021-2022.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-10 17:56:28.685061; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Torres Strait and Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia.