Identifies the range of physical disturbance regimes occurring on the Australian continental shelf and quantifies their geographic extents. (2) Develops disturbance indexes suitable for surrogacy applications that represent the energy level, delivery rate and peak-load of seabed stress. (3) Maps at a regional scale (where existing data sets permit) the areas on the shelf slope that are likely to be disturbed by seabed failure and associated down-slope mass movement and gravity currents. (4) Provides a regional ranking of the slope based on susceptibility.