The catchment boundaries of 111 Tasmanian estuaries, coastal lakes and lagoons were derived from 1:100,000 map sheets for an Ocean Rescue 2000 funded study , Regional Classification of Tasmanian Coastal Waters - Stage 2, EstuariesThe report for this study is titled " A Classification of Tasmanian Estuaries and Assessment of their Conservation Significance: an Analysis using Ecological and Physical Attributes, Population and Land Use" by G.J.Edgar, N.S.Barrett and D.J.Graddon, 1999.

Catchment boundary data - high resolution, nested digital product for Tasmania (inc Bass Strait Islands)

River sites were sampled during the summers of 2008/09 and 2009/10 in a survey designed to identify correlations between commonly used river condition variables and grazing land-use. Potential stream sites in northern Tasmania were screened by catchment size, northing and slope, and according to attributes aimed at minimising confounding variables, maintaining broad consistency in landscape and geomorphological context, and promoting independence among sites. A set of 27 survey sites was selected across a gradient from low to high proportion of land under grazing in their upstream catchments. Catchment sizes varied from 20-120 km2 and proportion grazing from 0-80%. Macroinvertebrates were sampled using Surber sampler. All macroinvertebrates within a 20% sub-sample identified to family and counted, with individuals from the insect orders Ephemeroptera, Plecoptera and Trichoptera identified to genus/species (by Laurie Cook, UTAS). Algal abundance was estimated at each site as the proportion of algal cover and as areal density of benthic chlorophyll a. Physical data variables collected were: water temperature, conductivity, turbidity, pH, total alkalinity, nitrate+nitrate, dissolved reactive phosphorus, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, overhead shading, the proportion of fine sediments within the sampled riffle zone, accumulated abstraction index and accumulated regulation index. For more information see: See Magierowski RH, Read SM, Carter SJB, Warfe DM, Cook LS, Lefroy EC and Davies PE. Inferring landscape-scale land-use impacts on rivers using data from mesocosm experiments and artificial neural networks. PLOS ONE.

Water quality and biological data was collected from four tide-dominated river estuaries indicative of catchments with varying levels of human impacts to: 1) assess draft indicator levels for water quality, and 2) investigate biological indicators of estuarine health in NW Tasmania. This data includes sampling from Detention River, Duck Bay, Montagu River and Black River

The CFEV River Section Catchments (RSCs) data layer shows 1:25,000 scale catchment boundaries within the major drainage catchments in Tasmania. It is part of a set of nested catchments for the state which reduce in size from the major catchments to sub-catchments to fine-scale river section catchments.

The Tasmanian Estuaries (North West) Marine Habitats 1:25,000 layer depicts marine habitats of four estuaries (Montagu River, Duck Bay, Black River and Detention River). The habitat types depicted in the dataset include rocky reef, sand, hard sand and seagrass. The data was collected in April 2005 by marine researchers at the Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute. The shallow waters of the estuaries enabled the use of aerial photography imagery as the primary data source. The habitats defined in the imagery required thorough checking in the field via underwater camera equipment, echo sounder data, and a Differential GPS unit to enable field checking of the image interpretation. The dataset is intended to be used to fulfil coastal management objectives according to The Living Marine Resources Act 1995 and to support Natural Resource management priorities in the Cradle Coast NRM region of Tasmania.

The Marine Nature Reserve dataset includes areas of Tasmanian State Waters that have been defined as Marine Nature Reserves by the Tasmanian Fisheries Rules 1999. Where part of the Reserve allows restricted fishing, a separate region is created for that part with a note in the Comment field of "Restricted Take". All other Marine Nature Reserves prohibit fishing. Refer to Fisheries Rules 1999 (SR158 of 1999) for details. The Marine Nature Reserves contained within this dataset are: Governor Island Marine Nature Reserve, Maria Island Marine Nature Reserve, Ninepin Point Marine Nature Reserve, Tinderbox Marine Nature Reserve, Kent Group Marine Nature Reserve, Port Davey/Bathurst Harbour Marine Nature Reserve.

A total of 111 estuaries of moderate or large size were recognised around Tasmania and associated Bass Strait islands. The catchments of these estuaries were mapped using GIS, and available data on geomorphology, geology, hydrology and rainfall collated for each estuary and catchment area. Tasmanian estuaries were classified into nine groups on the basis of physical attributes that included salinity and tidal data collected during a field sampling program. Baseline information on the abundance, biomass and estimated production of macrobenthic invertebrate species was collected during a quantitative sampling program at 55 sites in 48 Tasmanian estuaries. These data were generally obtained at three different intertidal levels and two shallow subtidal depths at each site, and included information on a total of 390 taxa and over 100,000 individuals. Data on the distribution of 101 fish species, as obtained during surveys of 75 Tasmanian estuaries using seine nets by Last (1983) with some supplementary sampling, were also incorporated into the study.