North and West Australian Tropical Reef Features - Boundaries of coral reefs, rocky reefs and sand banks (NESP-MaC 3.17, AIMS, Aerial Architecture)

This dataset provides mapping of 11,000 shallow coral reef, rocky reef, and sand bank feature boundaries in the north and west of tropical Australia. This dataset is intended to assist with environmental accounting, marine management, marine research planning and environmental impact assessments.

All features were digitised manually from satellite imagery that was optimised for image clarity of marine habitats (Hammerton & Lawrey, 2024a; Hammerton & Lawrey, 2024b). This dataset covers from Houtman Abrolhos Islands in Western Australia, across Northern Territory, through to Western Cape York in Queensland. This dataset also covers offshore coral reefs including Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island, Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Island. This study area is intended to complement the existing mapping of the Great Barrier Reef, Torres Strait and Coral Sea Marine Park. As this dataset is mapped from satellite imagery it only includes reefs that are shallower than approximately 5 - 40 m in depth. This means that deeper hard substrate areas are not included.