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The Influence of Geomorphology and Sedimentary Processes on Shallow-water Benthic Habitat Distribution: Esperance Bay, Western Australia

Created 16/10/2025

Updated 16/10/2025

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The mapping of seabed environments is fundamental to successful fisheries management and environmental monitoring, however, there is an emerging need to better characterise habitats based upon appropriate physical parameters. In this study, relationships between seabed geomorphology and the distribution of benthic habitats were examined using multibeam sonar, underwater video, predicted wave energy, and sediment data for Esperance Bay, part of the Recherche Archipelago. This shallow (<50 m), high energy, biogenic sediment dominated environment is located in temperate southwestern Australia. Exposure to wave energy appears to determine the distribution of unconsolidated substrate, and is the most useful regional scale predictor of rhodolith and seagrass habitats. Although they are intermittently smothered by mobile sediments, limestone reefs provide habitat for a wide range of sessile organisms, even in very high wave exposure environments. The distribution of rhodolith beds is related to poorly sorted sediments that contain high gravel, mud, and CaCO3 percentages. Our results reveal that in the Recherche Archipelago, wave abrasion coupled with localised sediment transport and accumulation play a major role in increasing the diversity of inner shelf benthic habitats. This highlights the value of assessing geomorphic processes in order to better understand the distribution and structure of benthic habitats.

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Field Value
Title The Influence of Geomorphology and Sedimentary Processes on Shallow-water Benthic Habitat Distribution: Esperance Bay, Western Australia
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/en/dataset/35784eb1-53bf-4993-ad83-86b52bc4b9ff
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia Data
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period 22/04/2018
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
{
  "coordinates": [
    122.0,
    -34.0
  ],
  "type": "Point"
}
Data Portal Geoscience Australia

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Geoscience Australia "The Influence of Geomorphology and Sedimentary Processes on Shallow-water Benthic Habitat Distribution: Esperance Bay, Western Australia". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/the-influence-of-geomorphology-and-sedimentary-processes-on-shallow-water-benthic-habitat-distr