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o Marine coastal ecosystems, such as saltmarshes, mangroves, and seagrasses – collectively referred to as ‘coastal wetlands’ – are Australia’s under-appreciated ecosystems. Yet coastal wetlands provide many benefits, or ‘ecosystem services’, including sustaining commercial and recreational fisheries, protecting our coastlines from ocean-related threats like storm surges and sea level rise, sequestering and storing carbon (known as blue carbon), and providing natural places for nature-based tourism and recreational activities. The Australian coastal wetlands spatial layers provide historical and contemporary distributions of coastal wetlands split by type for southeastern Australia or the states of New South Wales and Victoria. |