Extent of the Great Barrier Reef coastal zone for investigating coastal management and its impacts on marine life in the context of conservation planning (NERP TE 9.4, JCU)

This dataset contains the extent of the coastal zone for the Great Barrier Reef. This extent was identified as the most suitable area to be investigated on land and at sea as part of a conservation planning project looking at coastal development along the GBR coast.

Methods:

The terrestrial part of the coastal zone was initially defined in consultation with stakeholders and included the Queensland Government’s definition as “either: five kilometres from the coastline; or where land first reaches the height of 10 metres Australian Height Datum (AHD), whichever is further from the coast” (Queensland Coastal Management Plan). However, the Queensland government definition corresponds to a narrow strip of coastline in most areas and does not encompass most of coastal land uses (and their potential future expansion) that have a significant impact on the marine environmental such as agriculture. In the context of biodiversity conservation and water quality, workshop participants were asked what the coastal zone meant to them. The answers were summarised into four main categories:

1- Intensive coastal-based agriculture,

2- Geomorphological characteristics,

3- Typical coastal vegetation, and

4- Human presence and activities.

The coastal zone was defined to include all features that would match these four categories, and that also included the Government’s definition. The marine part of the coastal zone was also defined during this process and the offshore boundary was described as the maximum flood plume extent (secondary flood plume) as in Álvarez-Romero et al. 2013. The extent was smoothed to allow a clear area to be defined. This covers the areas that are have the greatest level of impacts from coastal development, in particular from run-off.

Format:

GBR_coastal_zone.shp (and all associated files as part of the shapefile)

This dataset contains a polygon that defines the extent of the area identified as the most appropriate coastal zone of the Great Barrier Reef to investigate conservation planning, in particular spatial planning of coastal development to ensure the health for the GBR World Heritage Area.

References:

Álvarez-Romero, J. G., M. Devlin, E. Teixeira da Silva, C. Petus, N. C. Ban, R. L. Pressey, J. Kool, J. J. Roberts, S. Cerdeira-Estrada, and A. S. Wenger. 2013. A novel approach to model exposure of coastal-marine ecosystems to riverine flood plumes based on remote sensing techniques. Journal of environmental management 119:194-207.

Identification info

Date (Publication): 2015-01-19

Cited responsible party

Role	Organisation	Name	Telephone	Delivery point	City	Administrative area	Postal code	Country	Electronic mail address
Principal investigator	Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (JCU)	Augé, Amélie, Dr	Voice	James Cook University	Townsville	Queensland	4811	Australia	amelie.auge@jcu.edu.au
Collaborator	Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (JCU)	Pressey, Bob, Prof.	Voice	James Cook University	Townsville	Queensland	4811	Australia	bob.pressey@jcu.edu.au

Point of contact

Role	Organisation	Name	Telephone	Delivery point	City	Administrative area	Postal code	Country	Electronic mail address
Point of contact	Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (JCU)	Augé, Amélie, Dr	Voice	James Cook University	Townsville	Queensland	4811	Australia	amelie.auge@jcu.edu.au

Spatial representation type: Vector

Topic category

Boundaries

Extent

Description: Coastal zone

Resource constraints

Linkage: http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/3.0/au/88x31.png
License Graphic

Title: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia License

Cited responsible party

Role	Organisation	Name	Telephone	Delivery point	City	Administrative area	Postal code	Country	Electronic mail address

Website: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/
License Text

Language: English

Character encoding: UTF8

Distribution Information

OnLine resource: Project web site

OnLine resource: eAtlas Web Mapping Service (WMS) (AIMS)

OnLine resource: Coastal zone shapefile. [Zip 1.5 MB]

OnLine resource: nerp:GBR_NERP-TE-9-4_JCU_Coastal-zone

OnLine resource: Interactive map of this dataset

OnLine resource: Table containing description and use of all source datasets used to create the Coastal Zone [Word 19kB]

Metadata constraints

Linkage: http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/3.0/au/88x31.png
License Graphic

Title: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia License

Cited responsible party

Role	Organisation	Name	Telephone	Delivery point	City	Administrative area	Postal code	Country	Electronic mail address

Website: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/au/
License Text

Metadata

Metadata identifier: urn:uuid/f49c5d09-3c50-4d0c-b779-f2dd3642bfcf

Language: English

Character encoding: UTF8

Contact

Role	Organisation	Name	Telephone	Delivery point	City	Administrative area	Postal code	Country	Electronic mail address
Point of contact	Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS)	eAtlas Data Manager	Voice facsimile	PRIVATE MAIL BAG 3, TOWNSVILLE MAIL CENTRE	Townsville	Queensland	4810	Australia	e-atlas@aims.gov.au