Australian Wave Buoy Observations from Multiple Agencies

Buoy data from at least nine contributing organizations, including Australian state departments and universities, form the National Wave Archive. The data is gathered primarily by Datawell Waverider systems, with newer contributions from Sofar Ocean Technologies Spotter buoys. Some older datasets lack directional wave information, while newer ones include it.

Use Cases

• Modeling coastal erosion and flooding based on wave height and period parameters.
• Analyzing long-term wave climate trends based on time-series observations from multiple sources.
• Validating wave forecast models based on in-situ buoy measurements.
• Studying wave directionality for maritime operations based on data from newer directional buoys.

Strengths

• Integrates data from multiple authoritative sources, including Australian state and federal agencies.
• Includes data from both legacy non-directional and modern directional wave measurement systems.
• Some data has been reformatted and replaced to improve consistency, as noted for the Manly Hydraulics Laboratory collection.

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

Multiple organizations including Manly Hydraulics Laboratory, Bureau of Meteorology, Western Australia DOT, Queensland DES, Defence Technology Agency (NZ), IMOS, University of Western Australia, and Deakin University.

Collection Method

Gathered by Datawell Waverider buoys and Sofar Ocean Technologies Spotter buoys.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-13 21:01:14.105493; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia and surrounding waters, with some data from New Zealand.