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2021 State of the Environment Report Marine Chapter – Expert Assessment – State and Trend – Water column – epipelagic (0-200 m, off-shelf)

Created 21/12/2025

Updated 21/12/2025

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The Marine chapter of the 2021 State of the Environment (SoE) report incorporates multiple expert templates developed from streams of marine data. This metadata record describes the Expert Assessment "State and Trend of Water column – epipelagic (0-200 m, off-shelf)". A PDF of the full Expert Assessment, including figures and tables (where provided) is downloadable in the "On-line Resources" section of this record as "EXPERT ASSESSMENT 2021 - State and Trend - Water column – epipelagic (0-200 m, off-shelf)"

DESCRIPTION OF HABITAT/COMMUNITY FOR EXPERT ASSESSMENT The water column (pelagic) community includes microbes, phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish and other higher trophic levels including seabirds, marine reptiles and marine mammals. By definition, the pelagic community is mobile, as smaller species are moved passively by currents, and larger species often move over large distances, both horizontally and vertically. Here we focus on the epipelagic zone, which we have defined as the top 200 m of the water column off the continental shelf (i.e., in waters >200 m depth). Across Australia’s management bioregions, we analysed the abundance/biomass of a selected group of pelagic trophic levels: Chlorophyll a (representing phytoplankton biomass) from satellite; and Zooplankton biomass from the IMOS Australian Continuous Plankton Recorder (AusCPR) survey.

DATA STREAM(S) USED IN EXPERT ASSESSMENT As our index of phytoplankton biomass, we analysed Chlorophyll a data from the IMOS Satellite Remote Sensing facility. For Zooplankton, we used biomass data from IMOS AusCPR survey. AusCPR data are collected on 5 nautical mile samples and the zooplankton on every 4th sample along a route is washed onto a filter paper, dried and weighed.

2021 SOE ASSESSMENT SUMMARY [see attached Expert Assessment for full details]

• 2021 • Assessment grade: Good Assessment trend: Stable Confidence grade: Very limited (mainly because higher trophic levels not assessed) Confidence trend: Very limited (mainly because higher trophic levels not assessed) Comparability: N/A • 2016 • N/A • 2011 • N/A

CHANGES SINCE 2016 SOE ASSESSMENT not previously assessed

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Additional Info

Field Value
Title 2021 State of the Environment Report Marine Chapter – Expert Assessment – State and Trend – Water column – epipelagic (0-200 m, off-shelf)
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/a013d69c-f5fa-4bdf-bdf2-68f9b7ce7287
Contact Point
Australian Ocean Data Network
info@aodn.org.au
Reference Period 25/08/2021
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
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      ],
      [
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        162.421875,
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      ],
      [
        102.65625000000001,
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      ],
      [
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      ]
    ]
  ],
  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Australian Oceans Data Network

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Australian Oceans Data Network "2021 State of the Environment Report Marine Chapter – Expert Assessment – State and Trend – Water column – epipelagic (0-200 m, off-shelf)". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://catalogue.aodn.org.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/2021-state-of-the-environment-report-marine-chapter-expert-assessment-state-and-trend-water-col2