NESP MaC Project 3.4 - Better Management of Catchment Runoff to Marine Receiving Environments in Northern Australia, 2023-2024 (GU)

Research Project

Researchers: Andrew Brooks (collaborator) ,  Australian Institute of Marine Science (Associated with) ,  Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) (Associated with) ,  Dylan Irvine (collaborator) ,  Faggotter, Stephen (collaborator)
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Full description This record provides an overview of the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub small-scale study - Project 3.4 – Better Management of Catchment Runoff to Marine Receiving Environments in Northern Australia. For specific data outputs from this project, please see child records associated with this metadata. There are many catchments in northern Australia where increased catchment development is proposed. This is largely in the form of irrigation development, but also increased cattle stocking rates. Given the relatively low levels of such development in many catchments to date, there is a strong desire to maintain the integrity of coastal and marine receiving environments after the implementation of future developments. The baseline understanding of water quality in receiving marine environments and in the contributing catchments is very limited across much of northern Australia, making management and other development decisions very challenging. However, there are examples of intensive grazing and irrigation developments in northern Australia, e.g. in the Lower Burdekin Delta, adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef coastline, where lessons can be learnt to fast-track understandings and management and set testable hypotheses about the potential impacts of development in other northern catchments. This project aims to take advantage of these existing examples to improve the quality of decision-making around the impact of terrestrial runoff on the marine environment, providing a template for decision-makers. Planned Outputs • River plume modelling [spatial dataset] • Estimated river plume sediment and Chlorophyll loads [modelling dataset] • Mangrove extents remote sensing [modelling dataset] • Primary production response to nutrients in estuaries [experimental dataset • Final technical report with analysed data and a short summary of recommendations for policy makers of key findings [written]

Notes Credit
This project was funded by the Australian Government's Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water through the National Environmental Science Program Marine and Coastal (NESP MaC) hub with co-investment from project partners and collaborators.

Data time period: 2023-02-01 to 30 06 2024

141.55658,-15.05578 137.96479,-16.49249 140.70289,-18.22707 141.45411,-17.58368 141.55658,-15.05578

139.76068413728,-16.641425985624

129.73644,-14.00009 129.83325,-13.78861 128.91783,-13.76465 128.37507,-14.80702 128.99435,-14.87745 128.99869,-15.31717 129.26728,-15.41897 129.88276,-15.28294 129.6307,-15.07289 129.76969,-14.81601 129.37611,-14.39547 129.73644,-14.00009

129.12891707187,-14.591813005038

130.47003,-13.56598 130.54125,-13.45467 130.11442,-13.15824 130.15845,-12.84104 129.85832,-12.62178 129.20268,-13.77184 129.83328,-13.78858 129.91762,-13.53093 129.98996,-13.54644 130.19417,-13.4267 130.47003,-13.56598

129.87196392873,-13.20518016982