21
Jul
Land Based Runoff Great Barrier Reef. Sediment and pollutant runoff from land. Declining water quality from land-based runoff and coastal development is the second biggest threat to the Great Barrier Reef behind climate change. Innovative practices best management techniques and new technologies are helping to reduce sediment run-off. Declining marine water quality influenced by land-based run-off is one of the most significant threats to the long-term health and resilience of the Great Barrier Reef.
Since European settlement Reef water quality has declined due to coastal development and agricultural activities in adjacent catchments. Sediment and chemical pollution from farms and land based runoff causes major damage to inshore coral reefs and seagrass meadows in our beautiful Great Barrier Reef. A key focus of protection and recovery efforts for the reef are based in the catchments adjoining its coastline. Nutrients or nutrient run-off can have various impacts on the Great Barrier Reef. Land-based run-off remains the greatest contributor to poor water quality in the inshore areas of the Great Barrier Reef and is a major contributor to the current poor state of many inshore marine ecosystems. Sediment run-off largely from grazing properties enters the waters of the Great Barrier reef from local waterways.
Recent studies suggest that degradation of inshore reefs may be linked to an increase in pollu-tants from land-based flood runoff since the European settlement.
This hinders management of agricultural activity fertiliser use and phosphorus runoff on coral reefs. We suggest that both in the Great Barrier Reef and in Fouha Bay human-induced changes in quality and quantity of terrestrial runoff have lead to reef degradation by generating phase shiftsthe process by which areas formerly dominated by. A key focus of protection and recovery efforts for the reef are based in the catchments adjoining its coastline. We report here on an 11-year source to sea study of pollutant delivery in runoff from the Fitzroy River Basin FRB. The most recent report card on the Great Barrier Reefs water quality highlighted major changes that need to be made to meet targets by 2018. In the absence of long-term spatio-temporal data it has been difficult to document and assess pollution impacts.