Project Coral Sea Mapping 2021-2025: GIS Datasets of Reefs and Cays

A set of high-quality GIS datasets maps emergent and shallow marine features within the Coral Sea Marine Park. The project, developed by AIMS and Parks Australia from 2021 to 2025, aimed to improve the precision and spatial detail of existing reef maps. Features were manually mapped from composite satellite imagery and validated with bathymetry surveys.

Use Cases

• Marine park management planning based on high-precision reef boundary and cay location data.
• Coral reef habitat modeling and analysis based on depth contours and substrate mapping.
• Geospatial analysis of atoll platforms and reef connectivity based on the clustered reef boundary rules.
• Assigning permanent identifiers to unnamed reef features for consistent scientific communication.

Strengths

• Features were manually mapped and extensively reviewed, suggesting high accuracy.
• Mapping integrates multiple data sources, including Sentinel 2, Landsat 8-9, Sentinel 3 satellite imagery, and multi-beam bathymetry.
• The project developed a robust, rule-based definition for reef boundaries to ensure consistent and repeatable quality.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network (AODN), aggregating data from AIMS and Parks Australia.

Collection Method

Manual mapping from composite satellite imagery, calibrated and validated with existing bathymetry surveys.

Time Range

Project period 2021-2025.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-13 16:33:40.017404; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Coral Sea Marine Park (CSMP).