Pollutants

As the NERP Tropical Ecosystems Hub research activities span several years, the Annual Work Plan (AWP) is the key document for defining, justifying, budgeting for and scheduling activities on an annual basis.

This Monitoring and Evaluation Plan complements other documents, including the NERP TE Hub Science Communication Plan, and describes how the Hub Steering Committee will monitor key performance indicators in order to advise DSEWPaC on Hub progress in a ti

The specific objectives of the NERP TE Hub Science Communication Plan are to promote and facilitate the influential application of Hub-generated knowledge.

 

The Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report 2009 is a stock-take of the Great Barrier Reef, its management and its future.

The aim of the Outlook Report is to provide information about:

The Multi-Year Research Plan, or MYRP, is a research plan that provides contextual information and a breakdown of research activities of the NERP Tropical Ecosystems Hub; describes the research that the Hub will be undertaking between 2011 and 2014; identifies research priorities and l

Torres Strait has long been recognised as a bridge into Australia and there has been a focus on both human and wildlife diseases and their presence in the area in the past.  Zoonoses, or diseases borne by animals, are of increasing concern to Australia. These diseases represent serious threats to human health, to our agriculture and to our biodiversity. In this project we will be focusing on improved methodologies for detection of disease incursions in Torres Strait and options to mitigate the establishment and the persistence of serious diseases of wildlife in the region. 

Seagrass meadows are a vital habitat in tropical coastal ecosystems: they support biodiversity of estuarine, coastal and reef communities, including fisheries species, and they are a direct food source for obligate seagrass feeders such as dugongs. Seagrass meadows in the coastal zone also form a buffer between the catchment and the reef, trapping sediments and absorbing nutrients, with their high productivity rates facilitating rapid nutrient cycling.

An understanding of the status of water quality in Torres Strait and its influence on marine foods, human health, marine ecosystems and ecological processes in the Strait is important.

To guide monitoring, management and mitigation decisions, researchers from CSIRO, JCU and AIMS propose to conduct a Phase 1 study to develop a robust approach that will allow them in Phase 2 to carry out an ecological risk assessment (ERA) of nutrients, fine suspended sediments, and pesticides used in agriculture in the Great Barrier Reef region, including ranking the relative risk of individual contaminants originating from priority catchments to the GBR ecosystems using a systematic, objective and transparent approach.

Phase 1 of the project aims to:

A key policy to minimising the effects of climate change on tropical marine organisms (e.g. coral bleaching and loss of seagrass cover) is to improve water quality, thereby reducing the potential for pollution to exacerbate the effects of thermal stress (Reef Plan, 2009).  While pesticides are thought to contribute to stress on nearshore habitats, little is known of their chronic effects on tropical species or their persistence in tropical waters.

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