Australia's Seabed: How much is mapped? A national metadata assessment – 2024

Australia has a vast marine jurisdiction and a thriving ocean economy, but our ocean faces increasingly complex pressures. Advancing our ocean knowledge is key to unlocking a sustainable ocean future. Seabed maps are an essential source of baseline information to inform the conservation, restoration, sustainable use, and management of our oceans.The goal is to map the shape of Australia’s seabed in sufficient detail to inform the sustainable management and use of marine resources. But knowing how much of the seabed is “mapped” and what is “sufficient” are far from simple. Seabed (bathymetry) data is available from multiple sources, is collected using different techniques of variable quality, is stored in disparate formats and locations, and what is considered sufficient varies depending on the application. As a result, Australia’s progress in mapping its seabed cannot be determined simply from data coverage.This fact sheet defines the term “mapped in sufficient detail”, provides an up-to-date assessment of the proportion of seabed mapped in Australia, and lays the foundation for reporting future progress.As of August 2024, using this methodology, 35.2% of Australia’s marine jurisdiction has been mapped in sufficient detail, with more of the seabed mapped around mainland Australia and external territories than in the Australian Antarctic Territory’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).Geoscience Australia will continue working with the seabed mapping community to include new and legacy data in the coverage dataset and will continue to track and report on Australia’s progress in mapping the seabed across its marine jurisdiction.

澳大利亚拥有广袤的海洋管辖海域与蓬勃发展的海洋经济，但本国海洋正面临日益复杂的多重压力。提升海洋认知水平，是开启可持续海洋发展未来的核心关键。海床地图是为海洋保护、修复、可持续利用与管理提供决策依据的至关重要的基础基准信息来源。本次海床测绘工作的目标是以足够精细的精度绘制澳大利亚海床形态，为海洋资源的可持续管理与利用提供支撑。但如何界定海床"已完成测绘"的范围，以及何为"足够精细"的测绘标准，绝非易事。海床（水深地形测量，bathymetry）数据来源多元，采集技术的质量参差不齐，存储格式与存储位置也各不统一，且"足够精细"的定义会因应用场景的不同而产生差异。因此，仅凭数据覆盖范围，无法简单判定澳大利亚海床测绘工作的整体进展。本情况说明书界定了"以足够精细精度完成测绘"的术语定义，提供了澳大利亚海床测绘占比的最新评估结果，并为后续进展汇报工作奠定了基础。截至2024年8月，采用本套方法论，澳大利亚35.2%的海洋管辖海域已完成足够精细精度的海床测绘；其中澳大利亚本土及海外领地周边的海床测绘覆盖率，高于澳大利亚南极领地专属经济区（Exclusive Economic Zone, EEZ）的相关占比。澳大利亚地球科学局（Geoscience Australia）将持续与海床测绘界开展合作，将新增测绘数据与历史遗留数据纳入测绘覆盖数据集，并将持续追踪并汇报澳大利亚在其全部海洋管辖海域内的海床测绘进展情况。