The benthic environment of the nearshore to inner-shelf within the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, was sampled and surveyed to classify sedimentary environments and benthic habitats. Reef and soft sediment habitats are characterised, delineated, and the potential impacts of suspended bivalve aquaculture considered. An integrated approach is used, utilizing a GIS database to combine remote sensing techniques such as multi-beam sonar and underwater video capture, with physical sampling of the soft sediments using sediment grab samples and infaunal organism identification. Soft sediment habitats, comprised of fine silty and muddy sediments with low organic contents, are determined to be the most suitable benthic environments above which to site suspended bivalve aquaculture. Transfer of knowledge from the study is maximised through the creation of a CD-ROM complete with hyper-linked analysed data and video files, thematic data layers and a freely available, query-able GIS viewer package.