TERN’s Australian Coastal Ecosystems Facility (ACEF) is working with more than 25 data custodians to negotiate access to about 100 coastal datasets that cover the gamut of coastal concerns: water quality, seagrass, wetlands, coastal biodiversity, and fisheries.
Facility Deputy Director Mr Jonathan Hodge said they were working with data custodians in state governments, commonwealth agencies, research organisations, universities, and not-for-profit groups. Significant data holdings will come from the Queensland Government and CSIRO.
‘The datasets will be made available through the ACEF data portal and integrated with the OzCoasts website as well as the Australian Ocean Data Network and the TERN Data Discovery Portal. The links to them will start flowing through in the next month or so,’ Jonathan says.
Other ACEF data are being made available online on the coastal monitoring site CoastalCOMS. Video is used to record data such as shoreline and wave height information that help scientists and coastal managers assess the state of beaches. Data are available from 17 camera sites around the country.
‘The camera locations and links to data will be available from the ACEF data portal, and will be linked to the portal of the Australian Ocean Data Network and the TERN data discovery portal. ACEF is also negotiating with CoastalCOMS for access to video information from 60 additional sites from Palm Cove, north of Cairns in Queensland, to Margaret River, in southern Western Australia,’ Jonathan says.
The ACEF team updated coastal managers from around the country on the ways its Coastal Research web portal is making it easier for them to find out what research is happening. The team spoke at the recent Coast to Coast conference in Brisbane.
Published in the TERN e-Newsletter October 2012
