Repository Listing
This project focuses on relationships between socio-economic systems and the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). It comprises three interrelated activities to investigate:
1. Resident and tourist views about the relative ‘value’ of key ecosystem services that are provided by the reef. Researchers will design, distribute and analyse the results of a survey instrument to assess the relative value of different goods and services produced by the GBR to stakeholder groups using both traditional money-based valuation techniques and Larson’s non-monetary based technique.
Turbidity is a measure of water clarity that quantifies the amount of small particles suspended in the water, and is a fundamental environmental parameter influencing coastal marine ecosystems. Turbidity reduces the light needed for photosynthesis by corals and seagrasses, and suspended particles also transport nutrients, pollutants and diseases. Previous research based on 3 years of turbidity data collected from 15 inshore reefs by the Reef Rescue Marine Monitoring Program has shown that it can take several months for water clarity to improve after river floods.
This project is conducting surveys of frogs and other vertebrates in ecotonal areas of the Wet Tropics and Eungella.