The Coastal Water Habitat Mapping Toolkit

Introduction

The Coastal Water Habitat Mapping (CWHM) "Toolkit" is aimed at providing a compendium of the benthic habitat mapping techniques and procedures contained in the recent research and development work conducted by the Australian Coastal Cooperative Research Center (Coastal CRC). The toolkit also provides a broad knowledge base of what is being done concerning benthic habitat mapping in Australia, along with useful International links, that highlight the advances being made in high-resolution hydro-acoustic and underwater photographic/video seabed mapping and habitat classification techniques and interpretation.

The toolkit is divided in to three main sections along with a decision tree and useful links:

The benthic habitat mapping section which covers the how and why, as well as what types of data are used to map and describe habitats.
The technical section which describes the range of acoustic and physical sampling techniques, as well as references to the electro-optical techniques needed to classify and map the seabed in a meaningful way in terms of its physical and biological characteristics.
The case studies section which highlights the published work undertaken by the Coastal CRC Shallow Water Habitat Mapping Group, with decision tree containing the reference matrix linking the research reports, publications and reference material to the technical information that provide information and other useful links, which are helpful aids in the choice of technology to be used in future habitat classification methodologies.

The three main sections are shown in the diagram below, with GIS being an integral floating tool in the benthic habitat mapping and management process.