Stokes Inlet Seagrass Survey Data from 2009, Western Australia

2009 survey data on seagrass composition and distribution in Stokes Inlet, Western Australia. The data was collected by the WA Department of Water and Geoscience Australia for a baseline study, later used in a 2013 Australia-wide risk assessment. It consists of point data for species presence/absence and polygon data for interpolated percentage cover.

Use Cases

• Map seagrass distribution based on the polygon dataset showing interpolated percentage cover.
• Analyze species presence and absence patterns based on the point dataset of survey sites.
• Establish baseline ecological conditions for estuaries in southern and south-western Western Australia.
• Assess habitat risk for seagrass meadows as part of regional environmental studies.

Strengths

• Data was collected by government agencies (WA Department of Water and Geoscience Australia), suggesting authoritative collection methods.
• Includes both point-level survey data and polygon-level interpolated cover data, providing multiple spatial representations.
• Serves as baseline data for a key estuary, supporting temporal comparison studies.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

Water Science Branch of the Department of Water (Western Australia), Geoscience Australia, and the ACEAS Seagrass Group.

Collection Method

Field surveys conducted to collect baseline data on seagrass composition and distribution.

Time Range

2009

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-22 03:21:10.980459; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Stokes Inlet, estuaries of southern and south-western Western Australia.