Statewide Assessment of Victorian Marine Protected Areas Using Existing Data

A new Report is published in as "Statewide assessment of Victorian marine protected areas using existing data".

Young et al., 2022

Along the 2,000 km Victorian coast, Parks Victoria manages a system of 13 marine national parks and 11 sanctuaries, which make up approximately 5.3% of Victoria’s state waters. These marine protected areas (MPAs) were declared to be a comprehensive, adequate and representative sample of the state’s marine habitats based on the best available knowledge at the time. Good park management requires an understanding of the natural values that occur within these parks, sanctuaries and reserves and the threats to these values. Since their designation, a large amount of data has become available, including information on seafloor habitat, surveys of biological communities, and satellite and modelled oceanographic data. The purpose of this study is to use this newly available information to assess the representation of habitats across the MPAs, the representation of environmental conditions, the change in environmental conditions through time and the connectedness of MPAs.

Using available data collected by multiple methods and groups from 1998 to 2019 across the entire coastal zone of Victoria, Australia, this study assesses the representation of habitat and conditions across the Victorian marine parks and the distributions of multiple marine species and groups.

This report was led by the Marine Mapping Group Member Mary Young, and Peter Porskamp, and Daniel Ierodiaconou contributed to the report.

Congrats to all the authors and the DU Marine Mapping Group!

To read the full article, click here.

Last edited on the July 30th, 2022.