Current Coastal and Research Projects

3D GBR Habitat Mapping Phase 2

Creating inshore reef habitat maps and improving the offshore reef, and creating reef boundary for all the shallow reefs in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park

2023-2025

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park

Authority

Seagrass Monitoring, Flinders Island, Tasmania

Developing a repeatable mapping approach to characterise the seagrass over time in Flinders Island, Tasmania

2023-2025

NESP coastal and marine hub, University of Tasmania and Deacon University

Habitat mapping

North East Australia

Improving shallow coral reef habitat maps for Western Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland (Gulf of Carpenteria)

2023-2025

NESP coastal and marine hub,

AIMS

Benthic Analysis Validation Support

Providing expert advice and support on developing benthic habitat field analysis and mapping approaches for Blue Carbon

2023-2025

CSIRO Blue Carbon

Benthic Blue Carbon

Developing seagrass and other benthic cover types efforts to support blue carbon assessment

2023-2025

The Lott cooperation

Benthic Analysis Validation Support

Providing expert advice and support on developing benthic AI tools

2021-2024

CSIRO

Tonga Tsunami

Impact Assessment

The 2022 Tonga Tsunami impacted the local reefs, this study will assess using earth observation what the impact is

2022-2023

Waitt Foundation

Seagrass Mapping

Cockburn Sound WA

Developing a repeatable mapping approach to characterise the seagrass over time in Cockburn Sound, Western Australia

2022-2023

University of Western Australia

Seagrass Monitoring

Moreton Bay Marine Park

Developing a repeatable mapping approach to characterise the seagrass over time in Moreton Bay Marine Park

2022-2023

Joint Remote Sensing Research Program

Seagrass species

and cover Eastern

Bank Moreton Bay

Mapping seagrass species and cover on the Eastern Bank Moreton Bay for 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 using object based high resolution multispectral image analysis

2021-2024

UQ-SUSMB, Goodman, The Lott

Counting Boats,

Moreton Bay

Developing an approach to use Planet Imagery to count small boats in main anchorage Moreton Bay, over time.

2022-2023

UQ-SUSMB, Queensland University of Technology

Global Mapping

Coral Reefs

This project mapped geomorphic zonation and benthic composition of all reefs up to 15 m deep globally as part of the Allen Coral Atlas

2018-2021

Allen Coral Atlas, Vulcan

Philantrophic

3D GBR Habitat

Mapping Phase 1

This project mapped geomorphic zonation and benthic composition, predicted coral type reefs up to 20 m deep for the offshore Great Barrier Reefs

2018-2021

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority

GBR Common 'live'

habitat map -for

Cairns to Cooktown

Management Region

This project aims to develop one contiguous baseline habitat map for the whole of the Great Barrier Reef. This study builds on previous work in the Capricorn Bunker group by applying improved mapping and modelling techniques to the shallow offshore reefs of the Cairns to Cooktown Management Region.

2016-2017

GBRF

Remote Sensing

Toolkit 2006, 2010,

2015, 2017 (Bahasa

Indonesia)

The Remote Sensing Toolkit will show managers, scientists and technicians working in marine, terrestrial and atmospheric

environments how they can use images from satellites and aircrafts to map and monitor environmental features and processes.

2009-2010,

2013-2015

UQ, Worldbank Coral Reef Targeted

Research, SEES T& L Funding,

Australia Indonesia Institute

Funding

Seagrass thermal

dynamics and

Remote Sensing

GBR

2015-2017

GBRF

Flinders Reef

Ecological

Assessment (FREA)

Citizen Science

Based Project

The aim of the FREA project is for UniDive to conduct an ecological assessment and mapping of Flinders Reef marine environment using a community based, cost effective, scientifically sound survey program. The results will report on the health of Brisbane waterways and how they impact the local coastal environment.

2015-2017

QPWS, Crowdsourcing

COral Reef Airborne

Laboratory (CORAL)

The goal of the COral Reef Airborne Laboratory (CORAL) is to provide critical data and new models needed to analyse the status of coral reefs and to predict their future.

2015-2017

NASA

Detailed Water

surface temperature

variability over Coral Reefs

The aim of this project is to investigate fine scale spatial (metres) and temporal (hourly) variability in water surface temperature in the context of coral reef thermal- and hydrodynamics

monitoring. This project will combine high spatial resolution thermal imagery with hyperspectral image data, both obtained from an Unmanned Airborne System platform.

2016-

JCU Grant

Placing Moreton

Bay's reefs on the

map

2015-

Assessing the effect of Sea Level Rise on

Mangroves,

Seagrass and Coral in Solomon Islands

High resolution satellite imagery and airborne photos were acquired from before and after the 2007 earthquake which hit the western province of the Solomon islands. This imagery has been used to map the extent and composition of mangroves, seagrass and coral areas. This study examines the impacts of sea level rise on these communities by using the earthquake effects as a large scale natural experiment.

2011-

UQ, AUSAID

Mapping for coral reef conservation:

Comparing the value of participatory and

remote sensing

approaches

Habitat maps are critical for conservation planning, yet are rare to non-existent for many coastal ocean habitats. This project compares two approaches for mapping seafloor habitats: local environmental knowledge obtained from interviews; and remote sensing analysis of high spatial resolution satellite imagery.

2011-2016

UQ, The Shedd Aquarium, the

Danajon Bank communities,

Fulbright Scholarship, a UBC Graduate Fellowship, Man in Motion Fellowship. Planet Action, the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium, BRITE, and the BBC Wildlife Fund.

Project Seahorse is supported by Guylian Chocolates

Development of

Underwater

Spectrometer

protocols, methods and equipment

In 2006 an underwater spectrometer capable of collecting spectra reflectance signatures in the water by one operator was created. The success and limitations of the instrument are used to develop an underwater spectrometer system with improved quality and capability of collecting spectral reflectance signatures of a variety of features.

2014 -

Infrastructure grant and strategic money

ACEAS Working

group: Australian

seagrass habitats: condition and threats

The group's primary objective is to bring together the numerous data sets that currently exist in relation to seagrass distribution to improve the spatial detail and accuracy of the 2008 estimate of seagrass coverage that

shows approximately 50% of the Australian Coastline as "unknown" for seagrass distribution.

2012-2013

ACEAS

Seagrass in Moreton Bay Over Time (live

map)

The aim of this project is to create a map for Moreton Bay showing the percentage cover of seagrass at a specific time in 2011.

Ongoing

Biophysical

Properties of Coral Reef Habitats in Space and Time for Heron Reef

Since 2000 the Remote Sensing Research Centre has been focussing on developing approaches to map and monitor the reef habitats of Heron Reef at various hierarchical spatial scales using integrated remote sensing

and field data.

2000-

ARC Linkage, CSIRO flag ship, WB Target Coral Reef Research, Digital Globe

Coral Reef Habitats

Dynamics of the

Capricorn Bunker

Group.

Since 2000 the Remote Sensing Research Centre has focused on developing approaches to map and monitor the reef habitats of Heron Reef and the Capricorn Bunker group at various hierarchical spatial scales using integrated remote sensing and field data.

2000-

ARC Linkage, Digital Globe, UW funding

Seagrass Dynamics Eastern Banks 2004-Current

The Remote Sensing Research Centre aims to understand the biophysical characteristics of seagrass in space and time by focussing studies at Eastern Banks, Moreton Bay since 1999.

2000-

ARC, Coastal CRC, EHMP, QPWS, Digital Globe, UQ_UWA, CSIRO

Coastal and

Estuarine Classification Frame Work

The Interim Estuarine and Marine Habitat Classification delivers an integrated habitat classification system for classifying, mapping and communicating Queensland's estuarine and marine intertidal and sub-tidal ecosystems and habitats.

2013-

EHP