Great Barrier Reef keeps World Heritage Site status

Mesophotic Coral Reef Ecosystems in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area

Regional scale nutrient modelling: exports to the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area.

Clearing of native vegetation and replacement with cropping and grazing systems has increased nutrient exports to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) to a level many times the natural rate. We present a technique for modelling nutrient transport, based on material budgets of river systems, and use it to identify the patterns and sources of nutrients exported. The outputs of the model can then be used ...

Predicting the Location and Spatial Extent of Submerged Coral Reef Habitat in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, Australia

AIM Coral reef communities occurring in deeper waters have received little research effort compared to their shallow-water counterparts, and even such basic information as their location and extent are currently unknown throughout most of the world. Using the Great Barrier Reef as a case study, habitat suitability modelling is used to predict the distribution of deep-water coral reef communitie...

Interactions between a Trawl Fishery and Spatial Closures for Biodiversity Conservation in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, Australia

BACKGROUND The Queensland East Coast Otter Trawl Fishery (ECOTF) for penaeid shrimp fishes within Australia's Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (GBRWHA). The past decade has seen the implementation of conservation and fisheries management strategies to reduce the impact of the ECOTF on the seabed and improve biodiversity conservation. New information from electronic vessel location monitor...

Water quality guidelines for the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area: a basis for development and preliminary values.

The Australian and New Zealand Guidelines for Fresh and Marine Water Quality (ANZECC Guidelines) provide default national guideline values for a wide range of indicators of relevance to the protection of the ecological condition of natural waters. However, the ANZECC Guidelines also place a strong emphasis on the need to develop more locally relevant guidelines. Using a structured framework, th...