Project 4.3
Project Leaders: Jon Brodie - JCU and Rai Kookana - CSIRO
A scoping study has been carried out to review risk assessment approaches being conducted by CSIRO; data availability; and the suitability of the different approaches to assess the relative risk of contaminants and associated land uses in the GBR region.
The selected approach will consider land-uses, catchment characteristics and toxicants. The end-point ecosystems likely to be considered will be estuarine wetlands, seagrass, coral reefs and the pelagic zone ecosystems (e.g. plankton communities) of the GBR lagoon.
The proposed ecological risk assessment (ERA) methodology is expected to employ a range of assessments for the relative risk of water quality constituents from major agricultural land-uses in the GBR catchments. The researchers will specifically look at a method able to evaluate relative risk to different ecosystems and their keynote species from the different contaminants, e.g. suspended sediments versus nitrogen (and different forms of nitrogen) versus phosphorus (different forms) versus pesticides (different types).
The results of the Phase 1 study will be used to secure support to carry out a full risk assessment.
Contact: Jon Brodie
See more information about this project here.
