AusSeabed is a national seabed mapping coordination program. The program aims to serve the Australian community that relies on seabed data by coordinating collection efforts in Australian waters and improving data access. The AusSeabed program is a national collaborative initiative led by Geoscience Australia, but operated by Commonwealth, State and Territory entities, universities and industry; it is open to all interested parties. In the spirit of "collect once, use many times", AusSeabed provides an open collaboration space where data creators and users can better connect to develop initiatives and products that will improve the quality, discoverability and accessibility of seabed mapping data. More specifically, AusSeabed is:
- promoting collaboration and innovation by stakeholders,
- enabling stakeholders to leverage Australia's swath mapping expertise and capabilities,
- utilising national resources and efforts to fully map the Australian seabed,
- identifying areas where new data is needed most,
- reducing pre-survey planning time for stakeholders,
- encouraging better standards of seabed data acquisition,
- increasing data use while minimising access costs and time,
- building expertise in the marine community in the planning and acquisition of seabed mapping data,
- contributing to better management of the Australian marine jurisdiction through - provision of information and data to support informed decisions.
AusSeabed is initially focussing on bathymetry (sea floor topography) which is an essential dataset meeting a range of applications. However, the long term goal is to establish the program as a collaboration space for all seabed and sub-seabed data types including sub-bottom profiles, seabed samples, backscatter etc.