NESP MaC Project 4.8: Pygmy Blue Whale Distribution and Impact Assessment

NESP Marine and Coastal Hub project outputs quantify the distribution and residency areas of endangered eastern Indian Ocean pygmy blue whales. The data includes spatial layers for habitat suitability, migratory corridors, foraging areas, and cumulative impact scores from offshore renewable energy and other human activities. The project aims to assist government, regulators, and stakeholders in assessing and mitigating impacts on this threatened species.

Use Cases

• Modeling habitat suitability for pygmy blue whales based on spatial distribution layers.
• Assessing overlap between whale migratory corridors and proposed offshore wind development zones.
• Calculating cumulative impact scores on whale populations from multiple anthropogenic pressures.
• Identifying Biologically Important Areas (BIAs) for conservation planning in Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, and NSW.

Strengths

• Focuses on a species listed as Endangered under the EPBC Act 1999.
• Outputs include multiple spatial data layers for distribution, habitat, and cumulative impact.
• Project scope covers the known eastern Indian Ocean range of the pygmy blue whale subspecies.

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 and specific data formats beyond PNG and HTML are unknown.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Research project outputs from the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-05 06:53:06.149462; freshness should be verified

Geography

Eastern Indian Ocean, specifically waters off Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, and potentially New South Wales.