NESP MaC 5.10: Australian Marine Parks Socio-Ecological Survey Data

A 2026 project by the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub designed to improve the socio-ecological understanding of Australian Marine Parks. It redesigned two national surveys targeting recreational fishers and the general public to support management plan reviews. The project's outputs include aggregated survey responses and a final technical report.

Use Cases

• Assessing changes in public awareness and attitudes towards marine parks based on repeatable survey designs.
• Estimating recreational use patterns at park- and network-scales based on boat-ramp survey data.
• Supporting integrated reporting on social, economic, and ecological values by combining survey outputs with natural values data.
• Informing the 2028 statutory review of marine park management plans based on socio-economic benchmarks.

Strengths

• Focuses on 60 Australian Marine Parks covering 3.8 million square kilometres, or 43% of Australian waters.
• Builds on a 2019/20 benchmark, enabling longitudinal analysis of awareness and use patterns.
• Survey design includes nine selected boat-ramp locations across five major marine park networks and the Coral Sea.

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.
• Only aggregated survey outputs will be made publicly available, limiting granular analysis.

Provenance

Source

NESP Marine and Coastal Hub, Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Redesigned national surveys (boat-ramp and general public) conducted with Parks Australia.

Time Range

Surveys designed to assess changes since a 2019/20 benchmark.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-16 19:37:53.751892; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australian Marine Parks, including the Coral Sea, North, North-west, South-west, South-east, and Temperate East networks.