Seabed Biodiversity on the Great Barrier Reef Shelf, 2003-2006

CRC Reef and CSIRO's study quantifies seabed biodiversity and environmental conditions across the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. The dataset includes over 600 km of towed video, approximately 100,000 photos, 1,150 baited remote underwater videos, echograms, and around 19,200 biological and sediment samples. The eAtlas provides processed tow video data as shapefiles and CSV files for visualization.

Use Cases

• Mapping benthic community assemblages based on towed video and sediment sample data for environmental risk assessment.
• Assessing acoustic remote sensing as a surrogate for seabed biodiversity using echogram data.
• Analyzing correlations between biophysical variables like sediment composition and seabed biodiversity patterns.
• Supporting sustainable management of the Queensland East Coast Trawl Fishery by mapping bycatch and benthos.

Strengths

• Includes a multi-modal survey with over 600 km of towed video and approximately 100,000 photos.
• Contains a large sample set with around 14,000 benthic, 4,000 seabed fish, and 1,200 sediment samples.
• Covers a broad spatial scope across the continental shelf of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent for some tables; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Attribute names in the provided shapefile were truncated to 10 characters due to format limitations.

Provenance

Source

CRC Reef and CSIRO, published in Pitcher et al. (2007).

Collection Method

Field surveys using towed video, baited remote underwater video, echograms, and physical sampling.

Time Range

2003 - 2006

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-10 14:14:59.685625; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Continental shelf of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, Australia.