Large Marine Domains of Australia's Exclusive Economic Zone

The Large Marine Domains dataset contains a set of regional marine planning units for Australia's Exclusive Economic Zone developed in collaboration with the National Oceans Office (NOO) and the CSIRO Division of Marine Research in 1998. These planning units are a key requirement for supporting Australia's Oceans Policy announced by the Commonwealth government in December 1998. The boundaries define areas surrounding continental Australia and the external territories including Cocos Keeling Islands, Christmas Island, Norfolk Island, Lord Howe Island, Macquarie Island, Heard and McDonald Islands, and the Australian Antarctic Territory. Boundaries have undergone a series of changes since their inception. See the Lineage for more details on these changes. Dataset including the boundaries of thirteen marine regions on the continental shelf of Australia, identified in the draft report 'Large Marine Domains Of Australia's Exclusive Economic Zones' (CSIRO 1998). The purpose of this study was to create a hierarchical framework of biological regionalisations at the provincial level derived largely from distributional data for endemic fish species. The previous study, 'Interim Marine and Coastal Regionalisation for Australia' (CSIRO 1996) of the shelf region (coast to the shelf-break at the 200m isobath) forms the basis of the current Large Marine Domain (LMD) regions on the shelf. The regions are designated Northern; North-eastern; Eastern-central; South-eastern; South-western; Western-central; North-western; Norfolk; Sunda; Macquarie; Kerguelen; Australian Antarctic; and South Tasman Rise. The National Oceans Office has, to a large degree adopted these Large Marine Domain boundaries to form administrative boundaries for marine mapping and planning purposes.