Williams et al. (2009) report on new multibeam sonar bathymetry and underwater video data collected from submarine canyons and seamounts on Australia's southeast continental margin to 'investigate the degree to which geomorphic features act as surrogates for benthic megafaunal biodiversity' (p. 214). The authors describe what they view as deficiencies in the design of the Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the southeast region of Australia, in which geomorphology information was employed as a surrogate to infer regional-scale patterns of benthic biodiversity. This comment is designed to support and underscore the importance of evaluating MPA designs and the validity of using abiotic surrogates such as geomorphology to infer biodiversity patterns, and seeks to clarify some of the discrepancies in geomorphic terminologies and approaches used between the original study and the Williams et al. (2009) evaluation. It is our opinion that the MPA design criteria used by the Australian Government are incorrectly reported by Williams et al. (2009). In particular, we emphasise the necessity for consistent terminology and approaches when undertaking comparative analyses of geomorphic features. We show that the MPA selection criteria used by the Australian Government addressed the issues of false homogeneity described by Williams et al. (2009), but that final placement of MPAs was based on additional stakeholder considerations. Finally, we argue that although the Williams et al. (2009) study provides valuable information on biological distributions within seamounts and canyons, the hypothesis that geomorphic features (particularly seamounts and submarine canyons) are surrogates for benthic biodiversity is not tested explicitly by their study.

The Surface Hydrology Points (Regional) dataset provides a set of related features classes to be used as the basis of the production of consistent hydrological information. This dataset contains a geometric representation of major hydrographic point elements - both natural and artificial. This dataset is the best available data supplied by Jurisdictions and aggregated by Geoscience Australia it is intended for defining hydrological features.

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22-1/J55-5/3

22-3/I55-4/8-1/2 Vertical scale: 100

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South East Queensand (SEQ) 2009 LiDAR data was funded by Queensland Department of Environment and Resource management (DERM) , which was captured and delivered by AAMHatch between March 25th 2009 and June 9th 2009. The project area covering 5300 sqkm was divided into three sub areas, namely South East Queensland Priority Area, Gold Coast and the Balance of SEQ. Data acquisition and post-processing has been controlled to achieve a vertical accuracy witihn 0.15m (RMS, 68% CI) and horizontal accuracy within 0.45 m. Horizontal coordinates are based upon Map Grid of Australia (MGA) Zone 56 projection. Vertical coordinates are referenced to Australian Height Datum (AHD). The data was captured with point density of 2.5 points per square metre and the data is available as mass point files (ASCII, LAS) and ESRI GRID files with 1m grid spacing in 1km tiles and inundation contours (0.25m). A hydrologically conditioned and drainage enforced 2m DEM or HDEM has also been developed in 2010 as part of the Urban DEM project managed by the CRC for Spatial Information and Geoscience Australia. The HDEM was produced by SKM using the ANUDEM program. Hydrologic enforcement and conditioning has included the testing of data for sinks, the referencing of transport and hydrology vector layers for intersections and flow, and the use of high-resolution imagery for visual validation. The methodology for hydrologic enforcement has required deriving a stream network based on flow direction and accumulation, using TIN and ANUDEM processes to analyse sinks and artificial damming affects caused by objects such as roads, bridges and trees which have not been previously filtered. Break lines have been included via the insertion of culvert/drainage channels, which has been used to interpolate these features into the main DEM as descending grid values. All data are referenced to GDA94/MGA Zone 56.

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