A 2013 study from Geoscience Australia quantified the extent of deep coral reef habitats on the Great Barrier Reef. The dataset indicates that 61% of available seabed on submerged banks (25,600 km²) is deeper than near-sea-surface reefs, with over half (around 14,000 km²) modeled as suitable for coral communities. This data was used to assess the potential refugia for coral biodiversity under ocean warming.
Use Cases
- Modeling potential coral refugia under climate change based on submerged bank area and depth.
- Assessing the spatial distribution of deep reef habitats along the continental shelf.
- Planning marine protected areas using predictive habitat suitability maps for coral communities.
Strengths
- Provides specific areal estimates: 25,600 km² of submerged bank area and 14,000 km² of modeled suitable habitat.
- Includes a mean depth estimate (around 27 m) for submerged bank habitats.
- Based on research published in a peer-reviewed journal (ICES Journal of Marine Science).
Limitations
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
- Freshness should be verified; the underlying research and model are from 2013.
Provenance
- Source
- Geoscience Australia Data
- Collection Method
- Predictive habitat modelling applied to seabed and bathymetric data.
- Time Range
- Study published in 2013; temporal coverage of underlying data is not specified.
- Freshness
- Last updated 2026-04-30 13:46:55.430179; freshness should be verified
- Geography
- Great Barrier Reef, Australia