Christine Crawford

Brief description

Dr Christine Crawford
My early career research concentrated on aquaculture development, including the development of the Pacific oyster and salmon aquaculture industries in Tasmania, and the culture of giant clams in the Pacific Island region. I was the Researcher in Charge (Aquaculture) for the Tasmanian Government, before moving into environmental related issues, initially the carrying capacity of oyster growing areas, followed by environmental monitoring and management of salmon farms. I then lead the Marine Environment (later Natural Resource Management) section at TAFI and secured over S14 million funding for a variety of marine environmental issues, including developing monitoring programs and baseline data collection for many small estuaries around Tasmania, habitat mapping and the role of environmental flows into estuaries. I have also developed strong links with community groups to involve them in and communicate scientific information about natural resource management.
Research and projects
My current research interests are centred around the effects of anthropogenic activities on estuarine and inshore coastal environments. These include:

Downstream effects of land-based operations - the role of environmental flows into estuaries and eutrophication due to increased nutrient inputs from agricultural activities in the catchment.

Interactions between aquaculture and the environment, including monitoring the abundance and composition of the macroalgae in the intertidal zone near to and distant from salmon farms and environmental factors involved in on-farm oyster mortalities.

Effects of changing climatic conditions and water currents in SE Tasmania on primary and secondary productivity, and hence fisheries and aquaculture in the region.

Associated with the above interests, developing cost effective and scientifically credible monitoring programs, involving both scientific and community-based assessments, that provide real data on environmental conditions now for comparisons with the past and in the future.