There is currently very little comprehensive spatial information about the extent of marine habitats and the condition of marine resources along the NSW coastline. An Industry & Investment NSW project, done in collaboration with the NSW Department of Environment Climate Change & Water and the coastal CMAs, has greatly extended the amount of spatial information available by mapping key coastal habitats and doing biodiversity surveys within some of those habitats.

A particular focus of the project was on NSW estuaries. Important habitats such as seagrass, mangrove and saltmarsh were mapped in the central part of the NSW coast to complement earlier work done along the coast south of Wollongong and north from Newcastle that formed part of the NSW Comprehensive Coastal Assessment (CCA). There is now a complete coverage for the 154 NSW estuaries which contain one or more of these habitats. Maps for each estuary and a report explaining the background to the project, the methodology used to produce the maps and comparisons with previous mapping studies are available via the links below.

The outputs from the project will provide Coastal CMAs and State and Australian Governments with information to support natural resource condition targets and to monitor the effectiveness of management actions against those targets. It is hoped that the actual spatial data layers will soon be widely available to those who use GIS for coastal planning, management or research purposes. In the interim, contact Greg West on Gregory.West@industry.nsw.gov.au or 4916.3853 if you wish to obtain copies of the shape files.

For general information about the estuarine mapping project, contact Dr Bob Creese on bob.creese@industry.nsw.gov.au or 4916.3806.

The complete report is available online.