Centre for Marine Futures
Funding
The project was funded from 2006-2008 by the Natural Heritage Trust.
Partners
WA Government agencies
Australian government
The Marine Futures Project was completed from January 2006 to December 2008. It developed a number of outputs which will support natural resource management into the future. The project aimed to develop marine resource indicators, based on an improved understanding of the relationship between marine habitats, biodiversity and our use of these values.
Marine Futures was the largest marine resource management investment by the Natural Heritage Trust in Western Australia, and produced an array of easily accessibel and user-friendly quantitative outcomes which have been useful for many key stakeholders.
The Marine Futures project was a partnership between Natural Resource Management (NRM) regional councils, the Australian and West Australian Governments, the University of Western Australia and Fugro.
The project’s focus was to map the dominant marine habitats and conduct biodiversity surveys in order to expand our understanding of the marine environment.
Research areas
Project data
Overview
The below list of documents and data are relevant to all of the study locations or across all of the research areas of the project.
- Marine Futures Site Selection Report [PDF; 1 MB]
The project team held a site selection workshop. The report attached provides a summary of the site selection process and outlines the rationale behind the selection of each location, based on the discussions from that workshop. - Marine Futures Spatial Report [PDF; 8 MB]
This report contains an overview of the methods used by the benthic modelling (mapping) team to develop the full coverage marine habitat maps at each of the study locations. - Marine Futures Biodiversity Workshop Outcomes Report [PDF; 600 KB]
The team held a biodiversity workshop in order to identify, review and select the biodiversity attributes and methods to sample in the Marine Futures project. This report sumarises the outcomes from the workshop. - Marine Futures Human Use Report [PDF; 31 MB]
- Acknowledgements [AVI; 66 MB]
A short clip of acknowledgements from the project.
Study locations
Documents and data specific to each study location:
- Abrolhos
- The Abrolhos Islands are located 60km west from the city of Geraldton, on the mid-west coast.
- Jurien
- Jurien Bay is located 275km north of Perth, on the mid-west coast.
- Rottnest
- Rottnest Island is located 19km from the Western Australian mainland.
- Capes
- The 'Capes' region is located at the south-western extremity of Western Australia.
- Broke Inlet
- Broke inlet is a relatively remote area 400km south of Perth, located in the South West of Western Australia between Augusta and Albany.
- Mt Gardner
- Mount Gardner is one of two Marine Futures sampling areas that lie within the vicinity of Albany, in South West Western Australia.
- Point Ann
- Point Ann lies on West Australia’s south coast approximately 180km east of Albany, within the Fitzgerald Biosphere.
- Middle Is.
- Middle Island is the most easterly of the Marine Futures sampling areas, and is located in the Recherche Archipelago, which comprises over 150 islands east of Esperance.
