Data from: Ninety years of change on a Low Wooded Island, Great Barrier Reef

We assess ninety years of change on a Low Wooded Island (Low Isles, Great Barrier Reef), employing drones and topographic profiling to accurately survey ramparts, mangroves, the reef flat and the sand cay. A comparison with maps from the 1928-29 Great Barrier Reef Expedition revealed the redistribution of an outer rampart and inward movement of shingle ridges. Remarkable lateral expansion of the mangrove woodland some 400 m has occurred as carbonate sand deposition has increased reef flat elevation, obscuring coral microatolls. The sand cay has stayed relatively constant in size, moving 44 m in a north-easterly direction and rotating slightly. We conclude that the existing configuration of landforms likely represents an equilibrium with local biophysical conditions, including sea level, wave dynamics, vegetation growth and storms and cyclones. The variable nature of ramparts and the presence of a trough that prevents the continuous spread of mangroves across a uniformly flat colonisation surface precludes the interpretation of landform changes with respect to a geomorphic evolutionary sequence. Moreover, longer-term implications of environmental change for these landforms can only be evaluated once the specific nature of the local carbonate budget, including the relative contribution of corals, foraminifera and Halimeda has been elucidated.

搜集汇总

背景与挑战

背景概述

该数据集研究了大堡礁低矮林岛九十年来的地貌变化，通过无人机和地形剖面调查，发现堤坝重新分布、红树林显著扩展约400米，沙洲相对稳定但发生了移动。数据集包含无人机图像拼接和地形剖面数据，文件大小为3.1 GB，适用于环境变化和地貌演化分析。