The Connectivity Interface or "ConnIe" has been developed as a tool for environmental scientists and managers to investigate the patterns of spatial connectivity on Australia's North West Shelf (NWS). Specifically, it provides the user with an estimate of the probability that any two regions are connected by modelled ocean circulation over a specified dispersion period. These connectivity statistics were computed from the paths of neutrally buoyant particles computed from the "Northwest" circulation model (based on MECO), run over the period from 1994 to 1999. The circulation model used a rotated latitude-longitude grid, with a horizontal resolution of approximately 10km and a vertical resolution expanding from 3 m near the surface to a maximum of 200 m at depths below 1000 m. The model was forced by wind fields from the NCEP-NCAR Reanalysis, while temperature and salinity fields around the lateral boundaries were interpolated from a global circulation model known as the Australian Community Ocean Model (ACOM). Sea levels on the boundaries were also taken from the global model output, with the addition of a tidal component derived from a combination of coastal sea level data and output from a global tidal model. ConnIe is expected to find applications in areas such as larval dispersion and recruitment studies, and the development of scenarios and risk assessments for contaminant dispersion.
This dataset comprises catch compositions and trawl locations from a cruise of the Russian fishery research vessel "Alba" carried out in Australian waters in September 1969, containing 22 demersal trawls from the Gulf of Carpentaria and Arafura Sea. Most records include catch composition by species (presence/absence but not weight), also some data on length frequency, maturity and diet of commercially important species. The data were obtained by exchange with Soviet scientists in the mid 1990s and has had CSIRO species codes incorporated. The dataset is now in an Oracle database in Hobart, and analyses/summaries of the data are given in the accompanying report (see References). A MS Access version of the dataset has been compiled for use within the North West Shelf-JEMS study. This version is available on-line for researchers in the NWS-JEMS study (see data links). The data are also accessible to authorised users via CMR's "Data Trawler" application. A username and password is required to access this dataset.