This dataset maps the geomorphic habitat environments (facies) for 36 South Australian coastal waterways. The classification system contains 12 easily identifiable and representative environments: Barrier/back-barrier, Bedrock, Central Basin, Channel, Coral, Flood- and Ebb-tide Delta, Fluvial (bay-head) Delta, Intertidal Flats, Mangrove, Rocky Reef, Saltmarsh/Saltflat, Tidal Sand Banks (and Unassigned). These types represent habitats found across all coastal systems in Australia. Most of the 36 coastal waterways have a "Modified" environmental condition (as opposed to "Near Pristine"), according to the National Land and Water Resources Audit definition.

This dataset maps the geomorphic habitat environments (facies) for 213 Queensland coastal waterways. This version of the dataset includes 73 newly mapped estuaries, classified as 'Near pristine'. The classification system contains 12 easily identifiable and representative environments: Barrier/back-barrier, Bedrock, Central Basin, Channel, Coral, Flood- and Ebb-tide Delta, Fluvial (bay-head) Delta, Intertidal Flats, Mangrove, Rocky Reef, Saltmarsh/Saltflat, Tidal Sand Banks (and Unassigned). These types represent habitats found across all coastal systems in Australia. Southern and central Great Barrier Reef lagoon coasts have a broad spectrum of river, tide and wave- dominated estuaries.

This dataset maps the geomorphic habitat environments (facies) for 88 Tasmanian coastal waterways. The classification system contains 11 easily identifiable and representative environments: Barrier/back-barrier, Bedrock, Central Basin, Channel, Coral, Flood- and Ebb-tide Delta, Fluvial (bay-head) Delta, Intertidal Flats, Rocky Reef, Saltmarsh/Saltflat, Tidal Sand Banks (and Unassigned). These types represent habitats found across all coastal systems in Australia. The majority of near pristine estuaries in Tasmania are located in the south and west of the State and on Cape Barren Island, according to the Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment.

Monitoring changes in the spatial distribution and health of biotic habitats requires spatially extensive surveys repeated through time. Although a number of habitat distribution mapping methods have been successful in clear, shallow-water coastal environments (e.g. aerial photography and Landsat imagery) and deeper (e.g. multibeam and sidescan sonar) marine environments, these methods fail in highly turbid and shallow environments such as many estuarine ecosystems. To map, model and predict key biotic habitats (seagrasses, green and red macroalgae, polychaete mounds [Ficopamatus enigmaticus] and mussel clumps [Mytilus edulis]) across a range of open and closed estuarine systems on the south-west coast of Western Australia, we integrated post-processed underwater video data with interpolated physical and spatial variables using Random Forest models. Predictive models and associated standard deviation maps were developed from fine-scale habitat cover data. Models performed well for spatial predictions of benthic habitats, with 79-90% of variation explained by depth, latitude, longitude and water quality parameters. The results of this study refine existing baseline maps of estuarine habitats and highlight the importance of biophysical processes driving plant and invertebrate species distribution within estuarine ecosystems. This study also shows that machine-learning techniques, now commonly used in terrestrial systems, also have important applications in coastal marine ecosystems. When applied to video data, these techniques provide a valuable approach to mapping and managing ecosystems that are too turbid for optical methods or too shallow for acoustic methods.

This dataset maps the geomorphic habitat environments (facies) for 73 Tasmanian coastal waterways. The classification system contains 12 easily identifiable and representative environments: Barrier/back-barrier, Bedrock, Central Basin, Channel, Coral, Flood- and Ebb-tide Delta, Fluvial (bay-head) Delta, Intertidal Flats, Mangrove, Rocky Reef, Saltmarsh/Saltflat, Tidal Sand Banks (and Unassigned). These types represent habitats found across all coastal systems in Australia. The majority of near pristine estuaries in Tasmania are located in the south and west of the State and on Cape Barren Island, according to the Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment.

Australia has developed as a maritime nation, from the reliance on coastal seas for transport and trade to the present day where most of the nation's population, industry, tourism and recreation are located along its coasts. In `A Geology of Australia', we discuss how coastal geological features and processes have strongly influenced the pattern of post-colonial settlement and development of Australia, and how our experience of the coast varies radically depending on our location on the continental margin. Examples are provided of the influence of coastal geology on society as well as the impacts people have had on coastal systems.

The service includes an outline of the Australian shoreline. The information was derived from the Geodata 3 Topographic 250K 2007 data, with a nominal scale of 1:250,000. It is a cached service with a Web Mercator Projection.

The service includes an outline of the Australian shoreline. The information was derived from the Geodata 3 Topographic 250K 2007 data, with a nominal scale of 1:250,000. It is a cached service with a Web Mercator Projection.

This dataset maps the geomorphic habitat environments (facies) for 85 Western Australia coastal waterways. The classification system contains 11 easily identifiable and representative environments: Barrier/back-barrier, Central basin, Channel, Coral, Flood- and Ebb-tide Delta, Fluvial (bay-head) Delta, Intertidal Flats, Mangrove, Rocky Reef, Saltmarsh/Saltflat, Tidal Sand Banks (and Unassigned). These types represent habitats found across all coastal systems in Australia. Western Australia has a diverse range of Estuaries due to different climates. Ranging from mostly "near pristine" and tide influenced estuaries in the north to "near pristine" wave dominated estuaries in the southwest region.

The Recherche Archipelago lies within the westernmost reaches of the Great Australian Bight, a large cool-water carbonate depositional province on the southern Australian margin. The inner shelf of the archipelago comprises numerous islands, typically comprising Proterozoic granites, which protrude from the shelf of mainly recent carbonate sediments. The area is influenced by extreme Southern Ocean swell energy, which results in a typically wave-abraded inner shelf, and sediment deposition mainly on the mid- to outer shelf. For Esperance Bay, a large shallow-water embayment within the archipelago, we examined the relationships between bottom sediments, geomorphology and the distribution of biotic habitats by integrating multibeam sonar, underwater video and sediment grab sample information. Major benthic habitats, such as seagrass beds, rhodolith beds, rocky reefs and mobile sand sheets are characterised in terms of their sea bed morphology, sedimentology and bioclastic composition. The littoral zone comprises mature quartz sand dominated by seagrasses, whereas the mainly carbonate-dominated shelf sediments are typically coarse gravely sands, and contain significant quantities of granitic material that is accumulating in areas of low wave exposure, typically behind the rocky islands. Bioclasts are dominated by red algal, bryozoan and foraminiferal components, as well as relict material. Sediment lags and calcarenite reefs occur in areas of high wave exposure, often with significant covers of macro-algae and sponges. The abundance of sediment producing organisms such as shallow-water rhodoliths and the presence of large-scale mobile sediment bedforms suggests that due to the influence of the rocky islands, the localised production and accumulation of carbonate sediments in the Recherche Archipelago is significantly greater than that observed in other parts of the Great Australian Bight inner shelf.