Seasonal Water Quality in the Swan River Estuary, Western Australia

The Swan River estuary in Western Australia provides data on seasonal changes in major ions, nutrients, and chlorophyll a at two upper-reach sites. The dataset, sourced from the Australian Ocean Data Network, examines intra-annual variations influenced by riverine discharge, with recorded temperature ranges of 13-29°C and salinity from 3-30. It was last updated on 2026-05 04.

Use Cases

• Modeling the impact of seasonal discharge and salt wedge propagation on water column stratification based on described physico-chemical identities.
• Analyzing nutrient limitation for phytoplankton growth based on described nutrient ratios and absolute concentrations.
• Investigating anoxia-induced nutrient release from sediments based on described increases in ammonium and phosphate in bottom waters.
• Studying the role of groundwater flow in nutrient transport based on the mention of sediment porewater interactions.

Strengths

• Explicitly documents a wide range of measured environmental parameters, including temperature (13-29°C) and salinity (3-30).
• Focuses on a specific, well-described geographic system: two sites in the upper Swan River estuary.
• Analyzes seasonal drivers, specifically riverine discharge and its effects on stratification and nutrient cycles.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic and temporal bias inherent to the specific two-site study in data_gov_au.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Seasonal sampling and examination at two fixed sites.

Time Range

Intra-annual (seasonal) variations.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-04 23:36:03.192694; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Two sites in the upper reaches of the Swan River estuary, Western Australia.