Marine spatial planning (MSP) has emerged in recent years as a tool for sea use management. However, MSP requires adequate and accurate information on the biophysical state and usage of the marine environment. Such data often exists, but generally not in a format which allows several data layers to be overlaid in order to identify potential conflicts/trade-offs.

Marine information management and data science are developing areas of research addressing how to easily access, collate and use multiple disparate sources of data to support marine ecosystem and resource management.

This project will identify, compile and standardise spatially-resolved datasets required for marine social-ecological system management for Tasmanian State waters. This work will build on accessible databases and platforms to provide recommendations on the availability and best practices of using marine data to support data-driven decision-making processes in Tasmanian waters. In addition, this project will also compare various off-the-shelf tools to identify trade-offs at various scales and resolutions. This research is required to identify the most appropriate tools for use in identifying conflicts/trade-offs in Tasmanian waters, given the needs of decision-makers and the available data.