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Assessing the relative risk of land based pollutants to the Great Barrier Reef
Summary
Researchers developed a risk assessment method to identify which land-based pollutants—including sediment, nutrients, and pesticides—pose the greatest threats to the Great Barrier Reef's coral and seagrass ecosystems. The study helps prioritize where management action is most needed to protect this globally significant marine ecosystem.
The iconic Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in Australia faces increasing pressure from human activities and has considerable ecological, cultural, social and economic values.Substantial evidence exists that links the degradation of GBR ecosystems, including reduction in coral cover, to declining water quality in the GBR.The loads of suspended sediment, nutrients and pesticides ('pollutants') discharged to the GBR from agricultural and urban development has increased greatly in the last 150 years.The pollutants disperse offshore during summer high flow events and pose a range of threats to valuable GBR ecosystems including coral reefs and seagrass meadows.We have developed and applied a risk assessment method to guide policy makers and catchment managers on the key land-based pollutants of greatest risk to the health of the two main GBR ecosystems, coral reefs and seagrass meadows.The risk assessment method used a combination of qualitative and semi-quantitative information about the influence of individual catchments, in the 6 natural resource management (NRM) regions, on coral reefs and seagrass meadows.The method uses a Multi Criteria Analysis approach with the application of a spatial multi criteria analysis tool, Multi-Criteria Analysis Shell for Spatial Decision Support (MCAS-S) developed by ABARES (refer to http://www.daff.gov.au/abares/data/mcass) in conjunction with ArcGIS for spatial analysis.
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