West Cape York Benthic Habitat and Fish Survey Sites, 2021

407 benthic habitat survey sites and 42 fish survey sites from a December 2021 marine expedition in West Cape York, Gulf of Carpentaria. The dataset was created by researchers from TropWATER (James Cook University) and collaborators for the Director of National Parks and Torres Strait Regional Authority. It includes two GIS shapefiles detailing site locations, survey dates, depths, and methods.

Use Cases

• Map seagrass meadow extent and health based on habitat survey site data.
• Analyze fish community composition based on BRUV (baited remote underwater video) deployment locations.
• Assess spatial relationships between habitat types and invertebrate diversity recorded in the survey.
• Support Indigenous sea country management by integrating Traditional Owner knowledge with geospatial survey data.

Strengths

• Includes 407 specific habitat survey sites and 42 BRUV fish survey sites.
• Survey conducted over a defined period (December 3–16, 2021) with collaboration from multiple research institutions and Indigenous groups.
• Data is structured into two GIS layers (habitat site and fish site) for spatial analysis.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count for underlying attribute data is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last updated 2026-07-16 11:58:21.833295; freshness should be verified.

Provenance

Source

Centre for Tropical Water & Aquatic Ecosystem Research (TropWATER), James Cook University, and collaborators.

Collection Method

Field surveys using TropWATER-developed methods for benthic habitats and BRUV deployments for fish, with data entered into ArcGIS 10.8.

Time Range

Survey conducted December 3–16, 2021.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-16 11:58:21.833295

Geography

West Cape York, Gulf of Carpentaria, Queensland, Australia, including West Cape York Marine Park and southern Dugong Sanctuary.