AusSeabed Sharing data to understand Australia's Seabed

Before planning commercial activities in Australian waters, pre-competitive data is essential to characterise the seabed environment. AusSeabed is a collaborative initiative that brings together publicly available seabed data and coordinates future data collection. AusSeabed is led by Geoscience Australia and involves partners from across Commonwealth and State governments, academia, and private industry. All data is published through the AusSeabed data portal. This includes survey data collected by government agencies, research institutions, and private industry as well as seamless regional and national gridded bathymetric surfaces. The portal also contains metadata for unpublished surveys as well as contextual environmental data, including geomorphology, sedimentology, geophysical, and coastal datasets. The data in AusSeabed is crucial for offshore energy development. Bathymetric surfaces are needed for oceanographic models that are used to assess wave and tidal energy, as well as for site assessments and marine spatial planning. Beyond those immediate uses, AusSeabed data has wide-ranging applications and benefits across multiple ocean sectors, including industry (offshore energy, fishing, and tourism); Defence, marine park management; environmental impact assessments; hazard modelling (tsunami and storm surge); and maritime boundary definition. As part of the collaboration, the AusSeabed community has developed a Survey Coordination Tool, where users are invited to share broad areas of interest, submit direct requests for surveys to be conducted by the Australian Hydrographic Office’s Hydroscheme Industry Partnership Program (HIPP), or publish their own survey plans. The Areas of Interest are used by government and research agencies to help prioritise new data collection and the processing of legacy bathymetric data that is currently unavailable for reuse. As a community-guided initiative, AusSeabed is a central hub for bathymetric quality guidelines, shared activities, and news. If you’re working on or above Australia’s seabed, you need to get involved. Abstract/Poster presented at the 2024 ICOE