Whitsunday Water Quality Monitoring Blueprint for Tourism Operators: Quarterly update - July 2020: A Report for Reef Catchments (Mackay Whitsunday Isaac) Limited

This report gives a quarterly update on data collected by the Whitsunday Water Quality Monitoring Blueprint for Tourism Operators in the second quarter of 2020. The results within this report cover the period 11/05/2020 to 23/06/2020

Aerial herbicide spray to control invasive water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes): water quality concerns fronting fish occupying a tropical floodplain wetland

Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) is an aquatic weed degrading tropical floodplains everywhere. On the Burdekin floodplain, northern Australia, it is widespread and contributes to poor water quality, specifically hypoxia which contributes to voluminous wetland fish kills each summer. Removing weeds have focused on applying herbicides using aerial spraying, though restoration success is not monitored. Here, we investigated four aerial spray applications scheduled between November 2013 (Year 1, November 2013 to November 2014) and November 2015 (Year 2, November 2014 to November 2015) in Lochinvah wetland (35 ha wetland, Burdekin floodplain). Using high-frequency (20 min) loggers, dissolved oxygen (DO%) was tracked, which revealed that concentrations were similar before and several weeks after a spray application (independent t test, p > 0.01, except spray application 2, p = 0.06). More interestingly, aquatic weed coverage was low (5% of wetland) during Year 1 and DO had a typical diurnal cycle (20% to 130%). In contrast, low wetland flushing in Year 2 and high weed coverage (80% coverage) combined to increase DO hypoxia exposure risks for fish, with nearly 100% of the logging time failing acute and chronic values known for local fish. The Year 2 weed cover also increased water temperature exposure risk (twofold increase), which was unexpected and which means that fish probably could access cool, deeper, water refugia more frequently compared with Year 1. Controlling aquatic weeds using aerial spraying seems to have minimal risk for fish when cover is low; however, the proliferation of aquatic weeds and spraying has deleterious impact on available oxygen for fish

Whale sharks as oceanic nurseries for Golden Trevally

The Golden Trevally, Gnathanodon speciosus, is a large predatory fish with an extremely broad tropical Indo-Pacific distribution that crosses many biogeographical boundaries. Both published information and freely available imagery suggest that small juvenile G. speciosus are often associated with whale sharks, Rhincodon typus; an association that could explain the unusually widespread distribution of G. speciosus, and suggests a novel nursery relationship. The possibility of such an association has the potential to reshape our understanding of the ecological roles played by long-range migrants such as R. typus and other megafauna, our understanding of the full extent of their conservation value, and how we manage both members of the relationship

Whitsunday Water Quality Monitoring Blueprint for Tourism Operators: Quarterly update - July 2020: A Report for Reef Catchments (Mackay Whitsunday Isaac) Limited

This report gives a quarterly update on data collected by the Whitsunday Water Quality Monitoring Blueprint for Tourism Operators in the second quarter of 2020. The results within this report cover the period 11/05/2020 to 23/06/2020

Southern Mackay Ambient Marine Water Quality Monitoring Program: Annual report 2020-2021

Ambient Water quality showed:The water column profile is well mixed for dissolved oxygen, temperature, electrical conductivity and pH. There is a seasonal pattern for water temperature, with highest temperatures recorded during the summer months, while winter months had much cooler conditions. This is expected in the region. Dissolved oxygen levels were also within the expected range, as was pH and electrical conductivity during this reporting period. • Particulate nitrogen and phosphorus were elevated above guideline values during summer months • Chlorophyll-a concentrations were highest in summer months and coincided with when nutrient concentrations are also high. In general turbidity values measured at Aquila Island were higher during spring tides, and lower during neap tides. Turbidity also increased during periods of heightened wave activity. PAR levels are primarily driven by tidal cycles with fortnightly increases in PAR coinciding with neap tides and lower tidal flows. Larger episodic events which lead to extended periods of low light conditions are driven by a combination of strong winds leading to increases in wave height and resuspension of particles, and rainfall events resulting from storms leading to increased catchment flows, and an input of suspended solids. This summary seems to follow patterns in the previous reporting period (2019-2020). Atrazine was the only herbicide that was detected during the reporting period using passive samplers

Southern Mackay Ambient Marine Water Quality Monitoring Program: Annual report 2020-2021

Ambient Water quality showed:The water column profile is well mixed for dissolved oxygen, temperature, electrical conductivity and pH. There is a seasonal pattern for water temperature, with highest temperatures recorded during the summer months, while winter months had much cooler conditions. This is expected in the region. Dissolved oxygen levels were also within the expected range, as was pH and electrical conductivity during this reporting period. • Particulate nitrogen and phosphorus were elevated above guideline values during summer months • Chlorophyll-a concentrations were highest in summer months and coincided with when nutrient concentrations are also high. In general turbidity values measured at Aquila Island were higher during spring tides, and lower during neap tides. Turbidity also increased during periods of heightened wave activity. PAR levels are primarily driven by tidal cycles with fortnightly increases in PAR coinciding with neap tides and lower tidal flows. Larger episodic events which lead to extended periods of low light conditions are driven by a combination of strong winds leading to increases in wave height and resuspension of particles, and rainfall events resulting from storms leading to increased catchment flows, and an input of suspended solids. This summary seems to follow patterns in the previous reporting period (2019-2020). Atrazine was the only herbicide that was detected during the reporting period using passive samplers

Port of Mackay and Hay Point Ambient Marine Water Quality Monitoring Program: Annual Report 2021-2022

In July 2014, North Queensland Bulk Ports (NQBP) in partnership with The Centre for Tropical Water and Aquatic Ecosystems (TropWATER) at James Cook University implemented an ambient marine water quality monitoring program in the region surrounding the Ports of Mackay and Hay Point. By incorporating a combination of approaches including spot measurements, acquisition of data via deployment of high frequency continuous loggers, water sample collection, and laboratory analysis of samples for a range of nutrients, pesticides, herbicides, and heavy metals, the objective of the program is to collect a long-term water quality dataset that characterises the ambient water quality conditions within the Mackay region

Barriers to Using UAVs in Conservation and Environmental Management: A Systematic Review

The ability to adopt novel tools continues to become more important for governments and environmental managers tasked with balancing economic development, social needs and environmental protection. An example of an emerging technology that can enable flexible, cost-effective data collection for conservation and environmental management is Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). It is clear that UAVs are beginning to be adopted for a diversity of purposes, identification of barriers to their use is the first step in increasing their uptake amongst the environmental management community. Identifying the barriers to UAV usage will enable research and management communities to confidently utilise these powerful pieces of technology. However, the implementation of this technology for environmental research has received little overall assessment attention. This systematic literature review has identified 9 barrier categories (namely Technological, Analytical and Processing, Regulatory, Cost, Safety, Social, Wildlife impact, work suitability and others) inhibiting the uptake of UAV technologies. Technological barriers were referenced in the literature most often, with the inability of UAVs to perform in poor weather (such as rain or windy conditions) commonly mentioned. Analytical and Processing and Regulatory barriers were also consistently reported. It is likely that some barriers identified will lessen with time (e.g. technological and analytical barriers) as this technology continues to evolve

Whitsunday Water Quality Monitoring Blueprint for Tourism Operators: Annual report 2022-2023

This citizen science project has brought together partners from a cross section of the Whitsunday community; the Partners include Reef Catchments, the Mackay-Whitsunday-Isaac Healthy Rivers to Reef Partnership, North Queensland Bulk Ports, TropWATER (Centre for Tropical Water and Aquatic Ecosystem Research) at James Cook University (JCU), along with Whitsunday Tourism Operators — Whitsunday Bareboat Operators Association (WBOA) and Whitsunday Charter Boat Industry Association (WCBIA). The project aims to link together citizen science and research initiatives around water quality and reef health, to collaboratively develop a framework for connecting citizen science work with the regional report card partnership hosted by Reef Catchments. This project focuses on utilising proven research, science experience and methodology to train Whitsunday tourism operators to collect marine monitoring data at key locations. The citizen science program has established two new water quality monitoring sites in the Whitsunday region which are then regularly sampled and maintained by Tourism Operators during their day to-day activities. The objective of the program is to give Tourism Operators the direct opportunity to engage in the collection of water quality data throughout the region. The tourism community has a vested interest in the long-term health and functionality of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and are well positioned to lead solution-based monitoring, evaluation, and effective communication. This annual report covers the 12-month period from March 2022 to February 2023