Rowley Shoals Marine Park

The park

• Rowley Shoals covers 876 km².CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0
• CAPAD 2024 holds 9 records for this park.CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0
• It has 6 named zones.CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0
• 24.2 % of the park (212 km²) is in zones of IUCN category Ia, strict nature reserve.CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0
• CAPAD lists it as Marine Park.CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0
• Its managing authority in CAPAD is WA_DBCA (Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, WA).CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0
• It was gazetted in 1990 (CAPAD gazettal date).CAPAD 2024 · CC BY 4.0

Habitats and blue carbon

• Global Mangrove Watch maps no mangroves inside the park in 2020.Global Mangrove Watch v3 · CC BY
• The modelled kelp forest biome covers none of the park.Jayathilake & Costello 2020 · CC BY 4.0

Pressures

• Of the years 1985 to 2025, 2025 brought the most coral heat stress: averaged over the park, the year's highest Degree Heating Weeks reached 15.3 °C-weeks. NOAA counts 4 °C-weeks as bleaching likely and 8 as severe bleaching and mortality likely.NOAA Coral Reef Watch · Public domain
• The 2013 cumulative human impact score (Halpern et al. 2015) averages 2.84 across the park, from 2.34 to 4.05.Halpern et al. 2015 · CC0 1.0

Data and research

• 134 of the 1,475 world map layers on Biohotspot with an open licence have data inside the park.
• 14 documents in the Biohotspot research library match the search “Rowley Shoals”.

Sources and licences

• NOAA Coral Reef Watch, daily global 5 km satellite Degree Heating Week (v3.1), annual maxima 1985–2025 · NOAA Coral Reef Watch
  Licence: Public domain (US Government work)
  NOAA Coral Reef Watch. 2018, updated daily. NOAA Coral Reef Watch Version 3.1 Daily 5km Satellite Regional Virtual Station Time Series Data. College Park, Maryland, USA.
• Cumulative human impacts: pressure and cumulative impacts data (2013, all pressures) · Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity (KNB)
  Licence: CC0 1.0
  Halpern, B., Frazier, M., Potapenko, J., Casey, K., Koenig, K., Longo, C., Lowndes, J., Rockwood, C., Selig, E., Selkoe, K., Walbridge, S. (2015) Cumulative human impacts: pressure and cumulative impacts data (2013, all pressures). KNB. doi:10.5063/F15718ZN. Associated paper: Halpern et al. 2015, 'Spatial and temporal changes in cumulative human impacts on the world's ocean' (no formal citation string given in the metadata).
• Modelled Global Distribution of the Kelp Biome · UNEP-WCMC Ocean Data Viewer (hosting); University of Auckland / Nord University authors
  Licence: CC BY 4.0
  Jayathilake D.R.M., Costello M.J. 2020. A modelled global distribution of the kelp biome. Biological Conservation 252, 108815. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108815 (v2: Jayathilake & Costello 2021, Biological Conservation, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2021.109099)
• Global Mangrove Watch (GMW) · UNEP-WCMC / Zenodo
  Licence: CC BY (UNEP WESR catalogue entry); not stated on the UNEP-WCMC resources page or the Zenodo v3 page
  Bunting, P.; Rosenqvist, A.; Hilarides, L.; Lucas, R.M.; Thomas, T.; Tadono, T.; Worthington, T.A.; Spalding, M.; Murray, N.J.; Rebelo, L-M. Global Mangrove Extent Change 1996 - 2020: Global Mangrove Watch Version 3.0. Remote Sensing. 2022.
• Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (CAPAD) 2024 – Marine · Australian Government, DCCEEW
  Licence: CC BY 4.0
  Australian Government Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (2025). Collaborative Australian Protected Areas Database (CAPAD) 2024 – Marine.

A park here is the CAPAD 2024 Marine zones that share a name and a state. Habitat areas are the habitat maps’ polygons inside the park; carbon, heat stress and human impact are the map cells that touch it. Only sources with an open licence are used. Computed on 2026-10-27.