NESP MaC Project 1.9: Ecosystem Services of the Great Southern Reef, 2021-2022

An inventory of data collated to quantify the ecosystem services and economic value of Australia's Great Southern Reef, an 8,000 km temperate reef system. The project synthesized existing data on market and non-market services like fishing, tourism, and carbon sequestration for shallow reefs (0–50 m). The work was conducted by UNSW and IMAS for the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub and aligns with national environmental-economic accounting standards.

Use Cases

• Estimating the economic value of kelp forests based on the inventory of market and non-market services.
• Informing conservation policy based on the synthesis of ecosystem service data across multiple Australian states.
• Identifying key data gaps for future research based on the project's foundational inventory.
• Developing national ocean accounts for marine ecosystems based on data aligned with environmental-economic standards.

Strengths

• Focuses on a significant 8,000 km reef network supporting over 17 million nearby residents.
• Provides the first systematic synthesis of ecosystem services data for the Great Southern Reef.
• Data inventory is aligned with national and international environmental-economic accounting standards.

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, UNSW, IMAS

Collection Method

Synthesis of existing data on ecosystem services and economic value.

Time Range

2021-2022

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-04 16:57:09.196738; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Great Southern Reef, Australia (Western Australia to New South Wales)