GAIA Marine completed the initial summer benthic habitat survey for proposed marine energy infrastructure in Victoria, establishing a georeferenced seabed imagery and metadata baseline to support environmental approvals and future survey planning.
The summer campaign formed the first major benthic survey phase for the project, with GAIA Marine engaged to acquire seabed imagery and sensor-linked positional data across a proposed pipeline corridor and offshore infrastructure area. The survey was delivered using a vessel-deployed tow-camera system operated close to the seabed, supported by real-time video, still-image capture, lighting, depth and altitude monitoring, attitude sensors and GNSS-linked navigation.
GAIA completed 109 transects during the campaign, working within a naturally constrained coastal environment where turbidity, tidal movement and variable water clarity affected acquisition conditions. Field procedures were adjusted to maximise data return, with low camera altitude and controlled vessel speeds used where feasible to improve image quality. The resulting imagery was geotagged, organised by transect and processed through GAIA’s in-house workflows, including underwater image enhancement to improve visual clarity and interpretability.
The success of the summer campaign provided the client with a robust environmental baseline and demonstrated the value of GAIA’s integrated field-to-data workflow. More importantly, it established the operational knowledge, survey controls and processing structure that supported a later winter campaign, allowing the follow-up survey to be delivered with improved continuity, stronger metadata integration and a clear understanding of site-specific survey constraints.