You are here
Ecological risk assessment of pesticides, nutrients and sediments on water quality and ecosystem health
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.
Latest News
- Laws protecting the Great Barrier Reef to be introduced next week, Queensland Premier says - Thu 28th May 2015
- Let’s get serious about protecting wildlife in a warming world - Thu 28th May 2015
- We’ve only monitored a fraction of the Barrier Reef’s species - Thu 28th May 2015
- Great Barrier Reef: warmer waters helping coral-eating starfish thrive - Fri 13th Feb 2015
- You are what you eat—if you're a coral reef fish - Wed 17th Dec 2014