Innovative approaches to analyzing cumulative impact of sediment, nutrients, light, salinity and temperature on the health of the Great Barrier Reef’s ecosystems by the Tropical Water Quality Hub are providing key underpinning information for the Queensland Government’s management of the world-famous coral reef.
Multiple journal papers published under a NESP TWQ Hub Project led by Dr Sven Uthicke at the Australian Institute of Marine Science have already been used by the Queensland Department of the Environment and Science’s Office of the Great Barrier Reef (OGBR)’s 2017 Scientific Consensus Statement, which provides the foundational scientific understanding of the Reef 2050 Water Quality Improvement Plan.
The project’s outputs are helping address a high priority knowledge need on ‘combined impact of pressures on the resilience of Reef and coastal ecosystems’ identified in the Reef 2050 Water Quality Research, Development and Innovation Strategy.
The outputs from this NESP project will be also likely be used in the future to guide our assessments of risk from poor water quality and aid management prioritization.
Datasets from this project are also now accessible through the e-Atlas information portal.