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TwitterLatest Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) digital boundaries shape files.
Files included: - Australia - 2021 - Shapefile - Local Government Areas - 2023 - Shapefile - Postal Areas - 2021 - Shapefile - Suburbs and Localities - 2021 - Shapefile - States and Territories - 2021 - Shapefile
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TwitterThese data present geologic map units for the United States (Horton and others, 2017; Wilson and others, 2015) and Australia (Raymond and others, 2012) reclassified to 31 generalized sub-type lithologic groups of igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks (Lawley and others, 2022). These generalized classifications are based on interpretation of map unit descriptions in the different map compilations. Given that map unit descriptions often contain multiple rock types, there were subjective calls necessary when assigning generalized lithologic classification. The data were developed as part of the tri-national Critical Minerals Mapping Initiative (Kelley, 2020) between the United States, Canada, and Australia, an effort to model and map prospectivity for basin-hosted Pb-Zn mineralization. A national-scale geologic map compilation for Canada is not publicly available. Therefore, Lawley and others (2021) compiled geologic source maps to produce a gridded model layer that is provided in this data release in the Child Items section “Gridded geology shapefiles for the United States, Canada, and Australia.” References Horton, J.D., San Juan, C.A., and Stoeser, D.B., 2017, The State Geologic Map Compilation (SGMC) geodatabase of the conterminous United States (ver. 1.1, August 2017): U.S. Geological Survey Data Series 1052, 46 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/ds1052. Kelley, K.D., 2020, International geoscience collaboration to support critical mineral discovery: U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet 2020-3035, 2 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/fs20203035. Lawley, C.J.M., McCafferty, A.E., Graham, G.E., Gadd, M.G., Huston, D.L., Kelley, K.D., Paradis, S., Peter, J.M., and Czarnota, K., 2021, Datasets to support prospectivity modelling for sediment-hosted Zn-Pb mineral systems: Natural Resources Canada Open File 8836, https://doi.org/10.4095/329203. Lawley, C.J.M., McCafferty, A.E., Graham, G.E., Huston, D.L., Kelley, K.D., Czarnota, K., Paradis, S., Peter, J.M., Hayward, N., Barlow, M., Emsbo, P., Coyan, J., San Juan, C.A., and Gadd, M.G., 2022, Data-driven prospectivity modelling of sediment-hosted Zn-Pb mineral systems and their critical raw materials: Ore Geology Reviews, v. 141, no. 104635, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oregeorev.2021.104635. Raymond, O.L., Liu, S., Gallagher, R., Zhang, W., and Highet, L.M., 2012, Surface Geology of Australia 1:1 million scale dataset 2012 edition: Geoscience Australia, http://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/74619. Wilson, F.H., Hults, C.P., Mull, C.G., and Karl, S.M., comps., 2015, Geologic map of Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Map 3340, 2 sheets, scale 1:1,584,000, 196-p. pamphlet, https://doi.org/10.3133/sim3340.
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TwitterAustralia's Land Borders is a product within the Foundation Spatial Data Framework (FSDF) suite of datasets. It is endorsed by the ANZLIC - the Spatial Information Council and the Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (ICSM) as a nationally consistent and topologically correct representation of the land borders published by the Australian states and territories.
The purpose of this product is to provide: (i) a building block which enables development of other national datasets; (ii) integration with other geospatial frameworks in support of data analysis; and (iii) visualisation of these borders as cartographic depiction on a map. Although this dataset depicts land borders, it is not nor does it suggests to be a legal definition of these borders. Therefore it cannot and must not be used for those use-cases pertaining to legal context.
This product is constructed by Geoscience Australia (GA), on behalf of the ICSM, from authoritative open data published by the land mapping agencies in their respective Australian state and territory jurisdictions. Construction of a nationally consistent dataset required harmonisation and mediation of data issues at abutting land borders. In order to make informed and consistent determinations, other datasets were used as visual aid in determining which elements of published jurisdictional data to promote into the national product. These datasets include, but are not restricted to: (i) PSMA Australia's commercial products such as the cadastral (property) boundaries (CadLite) and Geocoded National Address File (GNAF); (ii) Esri's World Imagery and Imagery with Labels base maps; and (iii) Geoscience Australia's GEODATA TOPO 250K Series 3. Where practical, Land Borders do not cross cadastral boundaries and are logically consistent with addressing data in GNAF.
It is important to reaffirm that although third-party commercial datasets are used for validation, which is within remit of the licence agreement between PSMA and GA, no commercially licenced data has been promoted into the product. Australian Land Borders are constructed exclusively from published open data originating from state, territory and federal agencies.
This foundation dataset consists of edges (polylines) representing mediated segments of state and/or territory borders, connected at the nodes and terminated at the coastline defined as the Mean High Water Mark (MHWM) tidal boundary. These polylines are attributed to convey information about provenance of the source. It is envisaged that land borders will be topologically interoperable with the future national coastline dataset/s, currently being built through the ICSM coastline capture collaboration program. Topological interoperability will enable closure of land mass polygon, permitting spatial analysis operations such as vector overly, intersect, or raster map algebra. In addition to polylines, the product incorporates a number of well-known survey-monumented corners which have historical and cultural significance associated with the place name.
This foundation dataset is constructed from the best-available data, as published by relevant custodian in state and territory jurisdiction. It should be noted that some custodians - in particular the Northern Territory and New South Wales - have opted out or to rely on data from abutting jurisdiction as an agreed portrayal of their border. Accuracy and precision of land borders as depicted by spatial objects (features) may vary according to custodian specifications, although there is topological coherence across all the objects within this integrated product. The guaranteed minimum nominal scale for all use-cases, applying to complete spatial coverage of this product, is 1:25 000. In some areas the accuracy is much better and maybe approaching cadastre survey specification, however, this is an artefact of data assembly from disparate sources, rather than the product design. As the principle, no data was generalised or spatially degraded in the process of constructing this product.
Some use-cases for this product are: general digital and web map-making applications; a reference dataset to use for cartographic generalisation for a smaller-scale map applications; constraining geometric objects for revision and updates to the Mesh Blocks, the building blocks for the larger regions of the Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) framework; rapid resolution of cross-border data issues to enable construction and visual display of a common operating picture, etc.
This foundation dataset will be maintained at irregular intervals, for example if a state or territory jurisdiction decides to publish or republish their land borders. If there is a new version of this dataset, past version will be archived and information about the changes will be made available in the change log.
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This dataset and its metadata statement were supplied to the Bioregional Assessment Programme by a third party and are presented here as originally supplied.
This dataset contains 4 different scale GEODATA TOPO series, Geoscience Australia topographic datasets. 1M, 2.5M, 5M and 10M with age ranges from 2001 to 2004.
1:1 Million - Global Map Australia 1M 2001 is a digital dataset covering the Australian landmass and island territories, at a 1:1 million scale. Product Specifications -Themes: It consists of eight layers of information: Vector layers - administrative boundaries, drainage, transportation and population centres Raster layers - elevation, vegetation, land use and land cover -Coverage: Australia -Currency: Variable, based on GEODATA TOPO 250K Series 1 -Coordinates: Geographical -Datum: GDA94, AHD -Medium: Free online -Format: -Vector: ArcInfo Export, ESRI Shapefile, MapInfo mid/mif and Vector Product Format (VPF) -Raster: Band Interleaved by Line (BIL)
1:2.5 Million - GEODATA TOPO 2.5M 2003 is a national seamless data product aimed at regional or national applications. It is a vector representation of the Australian landscape as represented on the Geoscience Australia 2.5 million general reference map and is suitable for GIS applications. The product consists of the following layers: built-up areas; contours; drainage; framework; localities; offshore; rail transport; road transport; sand ridges; Spot heights; and waterbodies. It is a vector representation of the Australian landscape as represented on the Geoscience Australia 1:2.5 million scale general reference maps. This data supersedes the TOPO 2.5M 1998 product through the following characteristics: developed according to GEODATA specifications derived from GEODATA TOPO 250K Series 2 data where available. Product Specifications Themes: GEODATA TOPO 2.5M 2003 consists of eleven layers: built-up areas; contours; drainage; framework; localities; offshore; rail transport; road transport; sand ridges; spot heights; and waterbodies Coverage: Australia Currency: 2003 Coordinates: Geographical Datum: GDA94, AHD Format: ArcInfo Export, ArcView Shapefile and MapInfo mid/mif Medium: Free online - Available in ArcInfo Export, ArcView Shapefile and MapInfo mid/mif
1:5 Million - GEODATA TOPO 5M 2004 is a national seamless data product aimed at regional or national applications. It is a vector representation of the Australian landscape as represented on the Geoscience Australia 5 million general reference map and is suitable for GIS applications. Offshore and sand ridge layers were sourced from scanning of the original 1:5 million map production material. The remaining nine layers were derived from the GEODATA TOPO 2.5M 2003 dataset. Free online. Available in ArcInfo Export, ArcView Shapefile and MapInfo mid/mif. Product Specifications: Themes: consists of eleven layers: built-up areas; contours; drainage; framework; localities; offshore; rail transport; road transport; sand ridges, spot heights and waterbodies Coverage: Australia Currency: 2004 Coordinates: Geographical Datum: GDA94, AHD Format: ArcInfo Export, ArcView Shapefile and MapInfo mid/mif Medium: Free online
1:10 Million - The GEODATA TOPO 10M 2002 version of this product has been completely revised, including the source information. The data is derived primarily from GEODATA TOPO 250K Series 1 data. In October 2003, the data was released in double precision coordinates. It provides a fundamental base layer of geographic information on which you can build a wide range of applications and is particularly suited to State-wide and national applications. The data consists of ten layers: built-up areas, contours, drainage, Spot heights, framework, localities, offshore, rail transport, road transport, and waterbodies. Coverage: Australia Currency: 2002 Coordinates: Geographical Datum: GDA94, AHD Format: ArcInfo Export, Arcview Shapefile and MapInfo mid/mif Medium: Free online
1:1Million - Vector data was produced by generalising Geoscience Australia's GEODATA TOPO 250K Series 1 data and updated using Series 2 data where available in January 2001. Raster data was sourced from USGS and updated using GEODATA 9 Second DEM Series 2, 1:5 million, Vegetation - Present (1988) and National Land and Water Resources data. However, updates have not been subjected to thorough vetting. A more detailed land use classification for Australia is available at www.nlwra.gov.au.
Full Metadata - http://www.ga.gov.au/metadata-gateway/metadata/record/gcat_48006
1:2.5Million - Data for the Contours, Offshore, and Sand ridge layers was captured from 1:2.5 million scale mapping by scanning stable base photographic film positives of the original map production material. The key source material for Built-up areas, Drainage, Spot heights, Framework, Localities, Rail transport, Road transport and Waterbodies layers was GEODATA TOPO 2.5M 2003
Full Metadata - http://www.ga.gov.au/metadata-gateway/metadata/record/gcat_60804
1:5Million - Offshore and Sand Ridge layers have been derived from 1:5M scale mapping by scanning stable base photographic film positives of the various layers of the original map production material. The remaining layers were sourced from the GEODATA TOPO 2.5M 2003 product.
Full Metadata - http://www.ga.gov.au/metadata-gateway/metadata/record/gcat_61114
1:10Million - The key source for production of the Builtup Areas, Drainage, Framework, Localities, Rail Transport, Road Transport and Waterbodies layers was the GEODATA TOPO 250K Series 1 product. Some revision of the Builtup Areas, Road Transport, Rail Transport and Waterbodies layers was carried out using the latest available satelite imagery. The primary source for the Spot Heights, Contours and Offshore layers was the GEODATA TOPO 10M Version 1 product. A further element to the production of GEODATA TOPO 10M 2002 has been the datum shift from the Australian Geodetic Datum 1966 (AGD66) to the Geocentric Datum of Australia 1994 (GDA94).
Full Metadata - http://www.ga.gov.au/metadata-gateway/metadata/record/gcat_60803
Geoscience Australia (2001) Geoscience Australia GEODATA TOPO series - 1:1 Million to 1:10 Million scale. Bioregional Assessment Source Dataset. Viewed 13 March 2019, http://data.bioregionalassessments.gov.au/dataset/310c5d07-5a56-4cf7-a5c8-63bdb001cd1a.
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Australian States and Territories - 2021 - Shapefiles
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2021) Digital boundary files Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) Edition 3 [https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/standards/australian-statistical-geography-standard-asgs-edition-3/jul2021-jun2026/access-and-downloads/digital-boundary-files], accessed 27 June 2022
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These data provide geologic information, including generalized lithology, geologic age, and paleo-latitude and -longitude of geologic units, for the United States, Canada, and Australia, in an H3 Discrete Global Grid System (DGGS) hexagonal format (Uber Technologies Inc., 2020) with an average hexagon area of 5.16 square kilometers. The data are presented as the shapefile version of ASCII data developed by Lawley and others (2021) for prospectivity modeling of basin-hosted Pb-Zn mineralization in the United States, Canada, and Australia (Lawley and others, 2022). References Lawley, C.J.M., McCafferty, A.E., Graham, G.E., Gadd, M.G., Huston, D.L., Kelley, K.D., Paradis, S., Peter, J.M., and Czarnota, K., 2021, Datasets to support prospectivity modelling for sediment-hosted Zn-Pb mineral systems: Natural Resources Canada Open File 8836, https://doi.org/10.4095/329203. Lawley, C.J.M., McCafferty, A.E., Graham, G.E., Huston, D.L., Kelley, K.D., Czarnota, K., Paradis, S., Peter, J.M., ...
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Data presented here include a shapefile that combines fault data for the United States and Canada (Chorlton, 2007; Reed and others, 2005; Styron and Pagani, 2020) and a shapefile of faults for Australia (Chorlton, 2007; Raymond and others, 2012; Styron and Pagani, 2020). These two shapefiles were used as an evidential layer to evaluate the mineral prospectivity for sediment-hosted Pb-Zn deposits (Lawley and others, 2022). References Chorlton, L.B., 2007, Generalized geology of the world: Bedrock domains and major faults in GIS format: a small-scale world geology map with an extended geological attribute database: Geological Survey of Canada Open File 5529, https://doi.org/10.4095/223767. Lawley, C.J.M., McCafferty, A.E., Graham, G.E., Huston, D.L., Kelley, K.D., Czarnota, K., Paradis, S., Peter, J.M., Hayward, N., Barlow, M., Emsbo, P., Coyan, J., San Juan, C.A., and Gadd, M.G., 2022, Data-driven prospectivity modelling of sediment-hosted Zn-Pb mineral systems and their critical r ...
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TwitterThis data is part of the series of maps that covers the whole of Australia at a scale of 1:250 000 (1cm on a map represents 2.5km on the ground) and comprises 513 maps. This is the largest scale at which published topographic maps cover the entire continent. Data is downloadable in various distribution formats.
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PLEASE NOTE: These data do not include data over Tasmania. Please see links relevant to that area.
GEODATA TOPO 250K Series 3 is a vector representation of the major topographic features appearing on the 1:250,000 scale NATMAPs supplied in Shape file format and is designed for use in a range of commercial GIS software. Data is arranged within specific themes. All data is based on the GDA94 coordinate system.
GEODATA TOPO 250K Series 3 is available as a free download product in Personal Geodatabase, ArcView Shapefile or MapInfo TAB file formats. Each package includes data arranged in ten main themes - cartography, elevation, framework, habitation, hydrography, infrastructure, terrain, transport, utility and vegetation. Data is also available as GEODATA TOPO 250K Series 3 for Google Earth in kml format for use on Google Earth TM Mapping Service.
Product Specifications
Themes: Cartography, Elevation, Framework, Habitation, Hydrography, Infrastructure, Terrain, Transport, Utility and Vegetation
Coverage: National (Powerlines not available in South Australia)
Currency: Data has a currency of less than five years for any location
Coordinates: Geographical
Datum: Geocentric Datum of Australia (GDA94)
Formats: Personal Geodatabase, kml, Shapefile and MapInfo TAB
Release Date: 26 June 2006
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TwitterOpen Database License (ODbL) v1.0https://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/
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This road network dataset was created from data extracted from OpenStreetMap (OSM) across the geographic area of Australia on 05 August 2020. Its purpose is to represent motor-vehicle traversable public roads within Australia. Note, however, as the original dataset is built by a community of mappers, there is no guarantee of its spatial or attribute accuracy. Use at your own risk. This road network has been topologically corrected for the purposes of network analysis for motor vehicles. For more information about the map features represented in this dataset (including their attributes), refer to the OpenStreetMap Wiki. Please note: The original data for this dataset has been downloaded from Geofabrik on 05 August 2020. AURIN has filtered the original data and omitted features to present the topologically correct, motor-vehicle traversable road network.
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TwitterThis GIS dataset provides location information and details about commodities exported from shipping ports around Australia. This dataset has been collated by Geoscience Australia from publicly available information as a guide only.
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Twittertopographic map vector data
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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
This data is part of the series of maps that covers the whole of Australia at a scale of 1:250 000 (1cm on a map represents 2.5km on the ground) and comprises 513 maps. This is the largest scale at which published topographic maps cover the entire continent.
Data is downloadable in various distribution formats.
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TwitterAttribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License information was derived automatically
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
This data is part of the series of maps that covers the whole of Australia at a scale of 1:250 000 (1cm on a map represents 2.5km on the ground) and comprises 513 maps. This is the largest scale at which published topographic maps cover the entire continent.
Data is downloadable in various distribution formats.
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AbstractNational Roads is a digital representation of the road network of Australia. National Roads contains linear features to describe surfaces that have been improved to enable vehicular, pedestrian and bicycle transportation on land and ferry routes that enable vehicles to cross water bodies. National Roads does not include railways, tramways, driveways or passenger ferry routes.This dataset provides an optimised aggregated national view of road geometry and attribution. The dataset is created from multiple sources including jurisdictional data which is revised regularly and supplied in varying formats and at different levels of quality.The purpose of Roads is to provide a single national digital representation of Australian roads with detailed attribution to enable clients to undertake activities including visualisation, analysis and logistics planning at both a national and local scale.The area covers the land mass of Australia, including offshore islands. Norfolk Island is currently not included.CurrencyDate modified: October 2025Modification frequency: MonthlyData ExtentSpatial ExtentWest: 96°South: -44°East: 160°North: -9° Source InformationThe data was obtained from Geoscape Australia on 31 October 2025. Geoscience Australia is providing this data to the public under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.Geoscience Australia catalogue entry: National RoadsLineage StatementNational Roads provides a single national digital view of road centrelines across the entirety of Australia. Roads is continuously built through sourcing a broad range of datasets from many organisations. This data is quality assured, standardised, integrated and topology-corrected before publication.Road centrelines are primarily sourced from State and Territory governments and form the basis for the Roads network. Roads additional to the State and Territory provisions are digitised or integrated where reliable sources of road centrelines are identified that improves the quality and/or consistency of Roads nationally. For attribution of Roads data sources refer to this webpage: geoscape.com.au/legal/data-copyright-and-disclaimer/.The Digital Atlas of Australia team have published a hosted feature layer for the National roads and a subset dataset called Major Roads in GDA2020 format.Data DictionaryAttribute NameDescriptionroad_idPersistent identifier for a roads featurecontributor_idThe contributor’s identifier for a Roads segmentjurisdictional_controlThe Jurisdiction with control of the road as defined by the source State or Territory Jurisdiction (e.g. TRANSPORT FOR NEW SOUTH WALES)operatorThe operator of the roaddate_createdDate this record was created in the data custodian’s system. Where this date is not available, then the first date on which the feature was processed for inclusion within Roadsdate_modifiedDate this record was last updatednational_routeA route number to identify a route of National significance (e.g. C30)state_routeA route number to identify a route of State significance (e.g. A20)full_street_nameThe full official road name, which is a concatenation of street_name, street_type, and street_suffix attributes (e.g. PARKES PLACE WEST)street_nameName of the road (e.g. SMITH AND JOHN)street_name_labelName of the road in Title Case (e.g. Smith and John)street_typeType of road (e.g. ROAD, STREET, CIRCUIT, LANE)street_type_labelType of road in Title Case (e.g. Road, Street)street_suffixSuffix of road (e.g. WEST)street_suffix_labelSuffix of road in Title Case (e.g. West)street_alias_nameA secondary name of the roadstreet_alias_typeA secondary type of the roadstreet_alias_suffixA secondary suffix of the roadfeature_typeThe classification of a road according to its physical characteristics (e.g. MOTORWAY, SINGLE CARRIAGEWAY)hierarchyHierarchy of the road (e.g. NATIONAL OR STATE HIGHWAY)subtypePhysical type of a road (e.g. ROUNDABOUT)ground_relationshipThe relationship the road has with the ground (e.g. ABOVE GROUND, ON GROUND, BELOW GROUND)lane_countNumber of physical lanes represented as a total countlane_descriptionDescription of the physical lane count of a roadone_wayIndicates if the road supports one-way or two-way traffic directionstatusLifecycle stage of a road (e.g. OPERATIONAL)surfaceSurface of the road (e.g. SEALED)trafficabilityIndicates the minimum type of vehicle advised to traverse the road (e.g. 2WD)travel_directionDirection a vehicle is allowed to travelspeedPosted speed limit for the section of road to which it is attributedstateIndicates the State or Territory abbreviation of the jurisdiction its linear geometry predominantly intersects (e.g. NSW)sourceThe contributor source that has provided the record (e.g. NSW)horizontal_accuracyThe horizontal accuracy of the line feature in relation to the real-world location in metresContactContact: Geoscience Australia clientservices@ga.gov.au
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TwitterThis dataset corresponds to land area polygons of Australian coastline and surrounding islands. It was generated from 10 m Sentinel 2 imagery from 2022 - 2024 using the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) to distinguish land from water. It was estimated from composite imagery made up from images where the tide is above the mean sea level. The coastline approximately corresponds to the mean high water level.
This dataset was created as part of the NESP MaC 3.17 northern Australian Reef mapping project. It was developed to allow the inshore edge of digitised fringing reef features to be neatly clipped to the land areas without requiring manual digitisation of the neighbouring coastline. This required a coastline polygon with an edge positional error of below 50 m so as to not distort the shape of small fringing reefs.
We found that existing coastline datasets such as the Geodata Coast 100K 2004 and the Australian Hydrographic Office (AHO) Australian land and coastline dataset did not meet our needs. The scale of the Geodata Coast 100K 2004 was too coarse to represent small islands and the the positional error of the Australian Hydrographic Office (AHO) Australian land and coastline dataset was too high (typically 80 m) for our application as the errors would have introduced significant errors in the shape of small fringing reefs. The Digital Earth Australia Coastline (GA) dataset was sufficiently accurate and detailed however the format of the data was unsuitable for our application as the coast was expressed as disconnected line features between rivers, rather than a closed polygon of the land areas.
We did however base our approach on the process developed for the DEA coastline described in Bishop-Taylor et al., 2021 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2021.112734). Adapting it to our existing Sentinel 2 Google Earth processing pipeline. The difference between the approach used for the DEA coastline and this dataset was the DEA coastline performed the tidal calculations and filtering at the pixel level, where as in this dataset we only estimated a single tidal level for each whole Sentinel image scene. This was done for computational simplicity and to align with our existing Google Earth Engine image processing code. The images in the stack were sorted by this tidal estimate and those with a tidal high greater than the mean seal level were combined into the composite.
The Sentinel 2 satellite follows a sun synchronous orbit and so does not observe the full range of tidal levels. This observed tidal range varies spatially due to the relative timing of peak tides with satellite image timing. We made no accommodation for variation in the tidal levels of the images used to calculate the coastline, other than selecting images that were above the mean tide level. This means tidal height that the dataset coastline corresponds to will vary spatially. While this approach is less precise than that used in the DEA Coastline the resulting errors were sufficiently low to meet the project goals.
This simplified approach was chosen because it integrated well with our existing Sentinel 2 processing pipeline for generating composite imagery.
To verify the accuracy of this dataset we manually checked the generated coastline with high resolution imagery (ArcGIS World Imagery). We found that 90% of the coastline polygons in this dataset have a horizontal position error of less than 20 m when compared to high-resolution imagery, except for isolated failure cases.
During our manual checks we identified some areas where our algorithm can lead to falsely identifying land or not identifying land. We identified specific scenarios, or 'failure modes,' where our algorithm struggled to distinguish between land and water. These are shown in the image "Potential failure modes":
a) The coastline is pushed out due to breaking waves (example: western coast, S2 tile ID 49KPG).
b) False land polygons are created because of very turbid water due to suspended sediment. In clear water areas the near infrared channel is almost black, starkly different to the bright land areas. In very highly turbid waters the suspended sediment appears in the near infrared channel, raising its brightness to a level where it starts to overlap with the brightness of the dimmest land features. (example: Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, S2 tile ID 52LEJ). This results in turbid rivers not being correctly mapped. In version 1-1 of the dataset the rivers across northern Australia were manually corrected for these failures.
c) Very shallow, gentle sloping areas are not recognised as water and the coastline is pushed out (example: Mornington Island, S2 tile ID 54KUG). Update: A second review of this area indicated that the mapped coastline is likely to be very close to the try coastline.
d) The coastline is lower than the mean high water level (example: Great Keppel (Wop-pa) Island, S2 tile ID 55KHQ).
Some of these potential failure modes could probably be addressed in the future by using a higher resolution tide calculation and using adjusted NDWI thresholds per region to accommodate for regional differences. Some of these failure modes are likely due to the near infrared channel (B8) being able to penetrate the water approximately 0.5 m leading to errors in very shallow areas.
Some additional failures include:
- Interpreting jetties as land
- Interpreting oil rigs as land
- Bridges being interpreted as land, cutting off rivers
Methods:
The coastline polygons were created in four separate steps:
1. Create above mean sea level (AMSL) composite images.
2. Calculate the Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) and visualise as a grey scale image.
3. Generate vector polygons from the grey scale image using a NDWI threshold.
4. Clean up and merge polygons.
To create the AMSL composite images, multiple Sentinel 2 images were combined using the Google Earth Engine. The core algorithm was:
1. For each Sentinel 2 tile filter the "COPERNICUS/S2_HARMONIZED" image collection by
- tile ID
- maximum cloud cover 20%
- date between '2022-01-01' and '2024-06-30'
- asset_size > 100000000 (remove small fragments of tiles)
2. Remove high sun-glint images (see "High sun-glint image detection" for more information).
3. Split images by "SENSING_ORBIT_NUMBER" (see "Using SENSING_ORBIT_NUMBER for a more balanced composite" for more information).
4. Iterate over all images in the split collections to predict the tide elevation for each image from the image timestamp (see "Tide prediction" for more information).
5. Remove images where tide elevation is below mean sea level.
6. Select maximum of 200 images with AMSL tide elevation.
7. Combine SENSING_ORBIT_NUMBER collections into one image collection.
8. Remove sun-glint and apply atmospheric correction on each image (see "Sun-glint removal and atmospheric correction" for more information).
9. Duplicate image collection to first create a composite image without cloud masking and using the 15th percentile of the images in the collection (i.e. for each pixel the 15th percentile value of all images is used).
10. Apply cloud masking to all images in the original image collection (see "Cloud Masking" for more information) and create a composite by using the 15th percentile of the images in the collection (i.e. for each pixel the 15th percentile value of all images is used).
11. Combine the two composite images (no cloud mask composite and cloud mask composite). This solves the problem of some coral cays and islands being misinterpreted as clouds and therefore creating holes in the composite image. These holes are "plugged" with the underlying composite without cloud masking. (Lawrey et al. 2022)
Next, for each image the NDWI was calculated:
1. Calculate the normalised difference using the B3 (green) and B8 (near infrared).
2. Shift the value range from between -1 and +1 to values between 1 and 255 (0 reserved as no-data value).
3. Export image as 8 bit unsigned Integer grey scale image.
During the next step, we generated vector polygons from the grey scale image using a NDWI threshold:
1. Upscale image to 5 m resolution using bilinear interpolation. This was to help smooth the coastline and reduce the error introduced by the jagged pixel edges.
2. Apply a threshold to create a binary image (see "NDWI Threshold" for more information) with the value 1 for land and 2 for water (0: no data).
3. Create polygons for land values (1) in the binary image.
4. Export as shapefile.
Finally, we created a single layer from the vectorised images:
1. Merge and dissolve all vector layers in QGIS.
2. Perform smoothing (QGIS toolbox, Iterations 1, Offset 0.25, Maximum node angle to smooth 180).
3. Perform simplification (QGIS toolbox, tolerance 0.00003).
4. Remove polygon vertices on the inner circle to fill out the continental Australia.
5. Perform manual QA/QC. In this step we removed false polygons created due to sun glint and breaking waves. We also removed very small features (1 – 1.5 pixel sized features, e.g. single mangrove trees) by calculating the area of each feature (in m2) and removing features smaller than 200 m2.
15th percentile composite:
The composite image was created using the 15th percentile of the pixels values in the image stack. The 15th percentile was chosen, in preference to the median, to select darker pixels in the stack as these tend to correspond to images with clearer water conditions and higher tides.
High sun-glint image detection:
Images with high sun-glint can lead to lower quality composite images. To determine high sun-glint images, a land mask was first applied to the image to only retain water pixels. This land mask was estimated using NDWI. The proportion of the water pixels in the near-infrared and short-wave infrared bands above a sun-glint threshold was calculated. Images with a high proportion were then filtered out of the image collection.
Sun-glint removal and atmospheric correction:
The Top of Atmosphere L1
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TwitterOpen Database License (ODbL) v1.0https://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1.0/
License information was derived automatically
This point of interests dataset was extracted from OpenStreetMap (OSM) across the geographic area of Australia on 05 August 2020. Its purpose is to display points within Australia which people may find of interest, this is not limited to major landmarks and include simple amenities. Note, however, as this dataset is built by a community of mappers, there is no guarantee of its spatial or attribute accuracy. Use at your own risk. For more information about the map features represented in this dataset (including their attributes), refer to the OpenStreetMap Wiki and the Points of Interest. Please note: The original data for this dataset has been downloaded from Geofabrik on 05 August 2020.
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Twitterhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License information was derived automatically
This data is part of the series of maps that covers the whole of Australia at a scale of 1:250 000 (1cm on a map represents 2.5km on the ground) and comprises 513 maps. This is the largest scale at which published topographic maps cover the entire continent.
Data is downloadable in various distribution formats.
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TwitterAttribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License information was derived automatically
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
This data is part of the series of maps that covers the whole of Australia at a scale of 1:250 000 (1cm on a map represents 2.5km on the ground) and comprises 513 maps. This is the largest scale at which published topographic maps cover the entire continent.
Data is downloadable in various distribution formats.
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TwitterAttribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
License information was derived automatically
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
This data is part of the series of maps that covers the whole of Australia at a scale of 1:250 000 (1cm on a map represents 2.5km on the ground) and comprises 513 maps. This is the largest scale at which published topographic maps cover the entire continent.
Data is downloadable in various distribution formats.
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TwitterLatest Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) digital boundaries shape files.
Files included: - Australia - 2021 - Shapefile - Local Government Areas - 2023 - Shapefile - Postal Areas - 2021 - Shapefile - Suburbs and Localities - 2021 - Shapefile - States and Territories - 2021 - Shapefile