Secchi Disk Depth for Great Barrier Reef Water Clarity, 1992-2006

Secchi disk depth data characterizes spatial patterns in water clarity for the Great Barrier Reef from 1992 to 2006. The dataset combines systematic survey data from the Queensland Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries with opportunistic data from the Australian Institute of Marine Science. Observations were interpolated over the whole GBR using Generalized Additive Models to produce a gridded product.

Use Cases

• Modeling spatial patterns of water clarity across the Great Barrier Reef based on the gridded interpolation.
• Assessing water quality as an environmental factor for coral reefs and seagrass meadows based on the Secchi disk depth indicator.
• Analyzing long-term trends in water transparency for ecosystem health monitoring based on the 1992-2006 time range.

Strengths

• Data covers a 15-year period from 1992 to 2006.
• Combines systematic and opportunistic sampling from two major institutions (QDPI-F and AIMS).
• Includes a gridded, interpolated version of the dataset for spatial analysis.

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 sampling bias inherent to the combined survey methods.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network, combining data from Queensland Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries (QDPI-F) and Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS).

Collection Method

Combined systematic one-off survey and opportunistic sampling, with interpolation using Generalized Additive Models (Quasipoisson fit).

Time Range

1992 - 2006

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-10 14:05:27.879685; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Great Barrier Reef