<div>The A1 poster incorporates 4 images of Australia taken from space by Earth observing satellites. The accompanying text briefly introduces sensors and the bands within the electromagnetic spectrum. The images include examples of both true and false colour and the diverse range of applications of satellite images such as tracking visible changes to the Earth’s surface like crop growth, bushfires, coastal changes and floods. Scientists, land and emergency managers use satellite images to analyse vegetation, surface water or human activities as well as evaluate natural&nbsp;hazards.</div>

Legacy product - no abstract available

Note that this Record has now been published as Record 2014/050, GeoCat number 78802

The OzCoasts web-based database and information system draws together a diverse range of data and information on Australia's coasts and its estuaries. Maps, images, reports and data can be downloaded and there are tools to assist with coastal science, monitoring, management and policy. The content is arranged into seven inter-linked modules: Search Data, Conceptual Models, Coastal Indicators, Habitat Mapping, Natural Resource Management, Landform and Stability Maps and Climate Change. The Climate Change module is the newest feature of the website and was developed in partnership with the Australian Government Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency. The module provides information and tools to help communicate the risks of sea-level rise and other potential impacts of climate change on coastal areas. It includes an elevation data and a modelling portal for access to existing and new elevation data and derived products, including sea level inundation maps for Perth to Mandurah, Melbourne, Sydney, Hunter and Central Coast & Brisbane and Gold Coast. The inundation footprints illustrate three sea level rise scenarios: a low (0.5m), medium (0.8m) and high (1.1m) scenario for a 2100 time period, with values based on IPCC projections (B1 and A1FI scenarios) and more recent science. OzCoasts will also soon deliver the Coastal Eutrophication Risk Assessment Tool (CERAT) for the NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water, and the Australian Riverscape Classification Service (AURICL) for the Tropical Rivers and Coastal Knowledge (TRaCK) consortium. CERAT will help identify and prioritise land use planning decisions to protect and preserve the health of NSW estuaries. AURICL has a northern tropical focus, and is a dynamic and flexible system for classifying catchments and their rivers based on the similarity, or dissimilarity, of a wide range of parameters.

Some of the most visible consequences arising from climate change are sea level rise and more intense and frequent storms. On the open coast and low lying estuarine waterways these impacts will lead to the increased risks of inundation, storm surge and coastal erosion that can damage beaches, property and infrastructure and impact on a significant number of people. Understanding the potential risk of these coastal hazards is critical for coastal zone management and the formulation of adaptation responses, while early action is likely to be the most cost effective approach to managing the risk. Geoscience Australia (GA) is assisting the Australian Government's Department of Climate Change to develop a 'first pass' National Coastal Vulnerability Assessment. GA and the University of Tasmania (UTas) are developing fundamental spatial datasets and GIS modelling tools to identify which land areas of the Australian coast are likely to be physically sensitive to the effects of sea level rise, storms and storm surge. Of special interest is to identify sensitive areas where there is significant property and infrastructure that will be the focus of a more detailed study in a second pass assessment. A new national shoreline geomorphic and stability map or Smartline, developed for the project by UTas, is a key new spatial dataset. The Smartline is an interactive, nationally-consistent coastal GIS map in the form of a segmented line. Each line segment identifies distinct coastal landform types using multiple attribute fields to describe important aspects of the geology, geomorphology and topography of the coast. These data enable an assessment of the stability of the coast and its sensitivity to the potential impacts of shoreline erosion (soft coast) and inundation (low-lying coast), providing a useful indicative coastal risk assessment.

This document represents part of Geoscience Australia's contribution to the National Estuaries Assessment and Management (NE) project, Theme 5 (Assessment and Monitoring), Task 5A 'Conceptual Models of Australian Estuaries and Coastal Waterways'. The report contains comprehensive conceptual models of the biophysical processes that operate in a wide range of estuaries and coastal waterways found around Australia. Geomorphic conceptual models have been developed for each of the seven types of Australian estuaries and coastal waterways. Each conceptual model comprises a three-dimensional block diagram depicting detailed summaries of the structure, evolutionary characteristics, and geomorphology of each coastal waterway type, which are ?overlain? by flow diagrams that depict some of the important biotic and abiotic processes, namely: hydrology, sediment dynamics, and nutrient dynamics. Geomorphology was used as the common 'base layer' in the conceptual models, because sediment is the fundamental, underlying substrate upon which all other estuarine processes depend and operate. In the conceptual models, wave-dominated systems are depicted as having a relatively narrow entrance that restricts marine flushing, and low water-column turbidity except during extreme events. Tide-dominated systems feature relatively wide entrances, which likely promote efficient marine flushing, very large relative areas of intertidal habitats, and naturally high turbidity due to strong turbulence induced by tidal currents. Strong evidence exists suggesting that estuaries (both wave- and tide-dominated) are the most efficient 'traps' for terrigenous and marine sediments, and these are depicted as providing the most significant potential for trapping and processing of terrigenous nutrient loads. Intertidal areas, such as mangroves and saltmarshes, and also the central basins of wave-dominated estuaries and coastal lagoons, are likely to accumulate the majority of trapped sediments and nutrients. Conceptual model diagrams, with overlays representing environmental processes, can be used as part of a decision support system for environmental managers, and as a tool for comparative assessment in which a more integrative and shared vision of the relationship between components in an ecosystem can be applied.

The Fitzroy catchment is the largest Queensland catchment discharging to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) lagoon. Sediments and nutrients together with anthropogenic pollutants originating upstream in the catchment are discharged from the Fitzroy River via the Fitzroy Estuary (FE) and ultimately into Keppel Bay (KB). The estuary and the bay act as natural chemical reactors where the materials delivered undergo chemical and physical transformations before some are deposited and stored in the growing deltaic and beach areas, with the remainder transported eastward to the southern zone of the GBR lagoon.

In this study of the beach-ridge plain at Keppel Bay, on the central coast of Queensland, we examine ridge morphology, sediment texture and geochemistry. We build a detailed chronology for the ridge succession using the optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating method. Although our interpretations are preliminary, our results suggest that significant changes have occurred in the rate of shoreline accumulation of sediment, catchment sediment source areas, and that there have been minor falls in relative sea level.

Australia's near-pristine estuaries are some of our most valuable natural assets, with many natural and cultural heritage values. They are important as undisturbed habitat for native plants and animals, for biodiversity conservation, as Indigenous lands and for tourism. They also support near-shore fisheries. In addition, by studying near-pristine estuaries, scientists can learn more about the way humans have changed natural systems. This information then feeds into natural resource management because it constitutes benchmark or baseline information against which similar information from more modified estuaries can be compared.

The Fitzroy River delivers large amounts of nutrients and fine sediments to Keppel Bay (contiguous with the Great Barrier Reef Lagoon) during intermittent flow events. This study explores sources, forms and transformations of nutrients in Keppel Bay, and develops a functional process zonation that integrates seabed geochemistry and water column nutrient characteristics which are controlled by suspended sediment. The water column and seabed properties were investigated over two dry seasons, with supplementary core incubations taken to measure carbon decomposition rates and nutrient fluxes. Keppel Bay can be divided into three zones, the: zone of maximum resuspension (ZMR); coastal transitional zone (CTZ); and blue water zone (BWZ). Mineralisation of predominantly terrestrial organic matter occurs in the ZMR where nutrient uptake by phytoplankton is light limited. The CTZ and BWZ had higher light penetration and phytoplankton growth was likely limited by N and P, respectively. The identified zones conform to the bathymetry and hydrodynamic characteristics of the bay, allowing for the development of an integrated conceptual model accounting for the benthic and pelagic biogeochemical processes. Recognition of these different zones shows that considerable variation in benthic and water column properties is possible within a small system with the bathymetric and hydrodynamic characteristics of the fluidised bed reactor.