Marine Habitats of Western Australia

This dataset consists of polygons delineating the broad-scale regional marine habitats of selected areas in Western Australia, mostly in existing and proposed marine conservation reserve areas. Habitat mapping was carried out by various organisations, including DPAW, using a range of methodologies over many years. Diverse classifications and habitat descriptions were standardised to the DPaW broad-scale Shallow-water Marine Habitat Classification scheme (SMHC) (Bancroft, 2003) after initial habitat mapping and classification work had been done. Habitat polygons are classified to the broad-scale ecological Community level and where more detailed data exist, local-scale Functional Group level (Bancroft, 2003). Polygons were attributed with habitat class names only, textual descriptions of these classes are provided in this metadata statement and further in Bancroft (2003).

本数据集包含用于勾勒西澳大利亚州部分区域（绝大多数位于现有及拟议海洋保护区范围内）大尺度区域海洋生境的多边形矢量要素。生境制图工作由包括公园与野生动物部（DPAW）在内的多家机构历时多年，采用多种方法完成。在完成初始生境制图与分类工作后，各类差异化的分类体系与生境描述均被统一至DPAW的大尺度浅水海洋生境分类方案（Shallow-water Marine Habitat Classification Scheme, SMHC）（Bancroft, 2003）。生境多边形被归类至大尺度生态群落级别；若存在更详细的数据集，则进一步细化至局域尺度功能群级别（Bancroft, 2003）。多边形要素仅附带生境类别名称属性，此类生境类别的文本说明详见本元数据声明文件以及Bancroft（2003）的相关研究。