Australia's Seabed: How much is mapped? A national metadata assessment – 2024

Australia has a vast marine jurisdiction and a thriving ocean economy, but our ocean faces increasingly complex pressures. Advancing our ocean knowledge is key to unlocking a sustainable ocean future. Seabed maps are an essential source of baseline information to inform the conservation, restoration, sustainable use, and management of our oceans.

The goal is to map the shape of Australia’s seabed in sufficient detail to inform the sustainable management and use of marine resources. But knowing how much of the seabed is “mapped” and what is “sufficient” are far from simple. Seabed (bathymetry) data is available from multiple sources, is collected using different techniques of variable quality, is stored in disparate formats and locations, and what is considered sufficient varies depending on the application. As a result, Australia’s progress in mapping its seabed cannot be determined simply from data coverage.

This fact sheet defines the term “mapped in sufficient detail”, provides an up-to-date assessment of the proportion of seabed mapped in Australia, and lays the foundation for reporting future progress.

As of August 2024, using this methodology, 35.2% of Australia’s marine jurisdiction has been mapped in sufficient detail, with more of the seabed mapped around mainland Australia and external territories than in the Australian Antarctic Territory’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

Geoscience Australia will continue working with the seabed mapping community to include new and legacy data in the coverage dataset and will continue to track and report on Australia’s progress in mapping the seabed across its marine jurisdiction.