NERP TE Project 4.3 Ecological risk assessment of pesticides, nutrients and sediments on water quality and ecosystem health – Phase 1 (CSIRO, JCU)

This project undertook a scoping study to develop a robust approach that will allow us in Phase 2 to carry out an ecological risk assessment (ERA) of nutrients, fine suspended sediments, and pesticides used in agriculture in the GBR region including ranking the relative risk of individual contaminants originating from priority catchments to the GBR ecosystems using a systematic, objective and transparent approach. The researchers will specifically look at a method able to evaluate relative risk to different ecosystems and their keynote species from the different contaminants, e.g. suspended sediments versus nitrogen (and different forms of nitrogen) versus phosphorus (different forms) versus pesticides (different types). The results of the Phase 1 study were used to secure support to carry out a full risk assessment.