VPSIRR (Vulnerability - Pressure - State - Impact - Risk And Response): An Approach To Determine The Condition Of Estuaries And To Assess Where Management Responses Are

Estuaries are highly variable in terms of type and geomorphic classification. The condition of these systems is often a reflection of activities taking place in their catchments and the susceptibility of these systems to each particular pressure. Effective management intervention can be achieved when there is an understanding of the current condition of the estuary or component of the estuary and of the pressures likely to affect them. If this can be linked to the susceptibility of the estuary to the pressure (risk), the management activity can be prioritised. A framework based on the Pressure-State-Impact-Response model, but which also includes the vulnerability of the system to each of the pressures has been developed. A key feature of this framework is that the links between indicators of pressure, state and impact are clearly identified ensuring that only indicators relevant to the local situation are selected. In addition, a risk assessment process has been developed. This approach is called a VPSIRR (Vulnerability - Pressure - State - Impact - Risk - Response)approach. Application of this method increases the likelihood of being able to identify the causes of any observed changes in condition, making it easier to identify appropriate management actions. It also enables information to be provided to the community in a user-friendly manner. We have developed a user friendly computer package which enables the risk that each estuary is under from various pressures to be assessed and linked to condition. The package enables the certainty about various data used to inform the process, to be reported. Importantly, the package enables indicator information to be updated as better information becomes available. It also enables new indicator information to be incorporated into the software should better knowledge become available. This component would only be made available to software administrators. The package produces a colour coded and numeric report card comprising of 5 colours or numbers which is designed to be easily understood and interpreted by users from a variety of backgrounds. The software can be used to inform managers of where to focus management investment, but can also be used to educate people about natural resource issues and the implications of different catchment and estuary based activities. Fact sheets imbedded within the software provide details about the various indicators. These include how to collect data and where necessary, how to analyse them in order to use the software. The fact sheets also provide information on management responses to a variety of issues

Co-designing adaptation decision support: meeting common and differentiated needs

As exposure to climate change increases, there is a growing need for effective adaptation decision support products across public, private and community sectors and at all scales (local, regional, national, international). Numerous guidance products have been developed, but it is not clear to what extent they meet end-user needs, especially as development has been fragmented and many products lack continuing support, learning and improvement. It is timely to address the development of more intentional and coordinated support strategies that draw on the experience to date and what end-users themselves say they need. We have taken such an approach to co-design future support strategies for Australia at national and sub-national (sectoral, locational and/or jurisdictional) levels. Several supporting frameworks are introduced to assist in the clarification of common needs (e.g. incorporation of leading adaptation practices) versus differentiated needs across sectors (e.g. a ‘decision entry points’ framework) and individual organisations (e.g. a ‘decision domains’ framework). The collaborative process also identified key principles that should underpin national and sub-national support strategies and product development. A comparison with international experience indicates that the findings and principles should also be relevant to other nations, and to international and sub-national agencies developing adaptation support strategies and products.The Leading Adaptation Practices and Support program was funded by the NCCARF (first phase) and the federal Department of Environment and CSIRO (second phase)

A database of marine phytoplankton abundance, biomass and species composition in Australian waters

There have been many individual phytoplankton datasets collected across Australia since the mid 1900s, but most are unavailable to the research community. We have searched archives, contacted researchers, and scanned the primary and grey literature to collate 3,621,847 records of marine phytoplankton species from Australian waters from 1844 to the present. Many of these are small datasets collected for local questions, but combined they provide over 170 years of data on phytoplankton communities in Australian waters. Units and taxonomy have been standardised, obviously erroneous data removed, and all metadata included. We have lodged this dataset with the Australian Ocean Data Network (http://portal.aodn.org.au/) allowing public access. The Australian Phytoplankton Database will be invaluable for global change studies, as it allows analysis of ecological indicators of climate change and eutrophication (e.g., changes in distribution; diatom:dinoflagellate ratios). In addition, the standardised conversion of abundance records to biomass provides modellers with quantifiable data to initialise and validate ecosystem models of lower marine trophic levels

Corrigendum: A database of marine phytoplankton abundance, biomass and species composition in Australian waters (Scientific Data (2016) 3 (160043) DOI: 10.1038/sdata201643))

© The Author(s) 2016. A series of errors in our database were brought to our attention by readers, and have been corrected in an updated version of this database, which is accessible via the AODN at the following link: https://portal.aodn.org.au/search?uuid =75f4f1fc-bee3-4498-ab71-aa1ab29ab2c0 The custodian details of several datasets were incorrect. These fields in the metadata table have been updated to correctly assign P744, P746, P748, and P778 to the Australian Antarctic Division, and P752 to the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. Species names and functional group assignments have been changed for a small number of records to fix identified errors. Tripos brevis and Tripos arietinus were spelt incorrectly, and have been duly corrected. Pedinellaceae was wrongly assigned to dinoflagellate as a functional group, and has now been re-assigned to flagellate. The 'Naked flagellate' group has been renamed 'Flagellate' as there is some inconsistency in the use of the term 'Naked flagellate' and what precisely would be included. The functional group 'Other', has also been excluded as this contained data that was not necessarily phytoplankton but had been found in phytoplankton counts. The macroalgae Murrayella australica, Cladophora spp., Chlorohormidium sp., Eudorina spp., Tribonema spp., Chlorohormidium spp. were also removed. In addition to these corrections, three datasets have been extended to include more recently acquired data: P 597 IMOS Australian Continuous Plankton Recorder survey (ongoing dataset, 59089 new records as of 2016-08-31); P599 IMOS National Reference Stations (ongoing dataset, 14669 new records as of 2016-08-31); and P1068 Great Barrier Reef Expedition 1928-29 (new dataset, 1340 new records). Table 1 provides a summary of the overall change in database contents. (Table Presented). This dataset will continue to grow and will be regularly updated with new data and any further corrections to the data. Users can email imos-planktonatcsiro.au with any comments, which will be reviewed and included in future updates if applicable. The AODN portal will always direct the user to the most recent version, the original version will remain available at http://dx.doi.org/10.4225/69/ 56454b2ba2f79, and interim versions will be available on request

Day and night ichthyoplankton assemblages and zooplankton biomass size spectrum in a deep ocean island wake

Zooplankton size and larval fish assemblages were compared between locations in the incident free stream and the island wake of Cato Reef, in the south Coral Sea over 6 d in February 1993. Weak incident northward flow of 0.3 m s-1 generated a wake on the lee side of the reef. Total abundance or larval fish diversity did not differ between the lee side and the wake. Myctophids and gonostomatids dominated the catch (85%), while reef-associated taxa represented <2% of the total. There were significantly fewer reef fish larvae in the wake (∼25%) than in the free stream, suggesting that reef-related settlement and/or predation may explain the difference. Most of the ichthyoplankton (58 families) were associated with the thermocline (ca. 50 m depth) during day and night. We found significantly steeper slopes of the normalised biomass size spectrum (NBSS, derived from an optical plankton counter) in the wake compared to in the free stream and near the thermocline. The slope was significantly correlated with the shape parameter of the Pareto distribution (r = 0.90), with local light attenuation and with smaller (318 to 883 μm equivalent spherical diameter) zooplankton biomass, consistent with the NBSS slope being a proxy for secondary production. The slope did not vary significantly between day and night despite a 30 % daytime reduction in total zooplankton biomass. Steeper slopes were significantly correlated with a greater abundance of larval myctophids and gonostomatids, possibly by fish seeking productive areas and by top-down removal of larger zooplankton. © Inter-Research 2006

Plankton dynamics due to rainfall, eutrophication, dilution, grazing and assimilation in an urbanized coastal lagoon

After a prolonged summer dry period, the effects of a distinctive and continuing rainfall on the nutrients and plankton of an urban coastal lagoon were investigated over 2 months. The lagoon filled up over 5 weeks from <10% of its maximum volume until it broke open to the sea. Nutrients (ammonia and oxidised nitrogen) significantly increased the day after initial rainfall, before returning to pre-rainfall conditions within 5 days. Phytoplankton biomass grew 10 fold within a week after initial rainfall in the 25-30 °C water and declined to near initial levels 2 weeks later. The assemblage of phytoplankton and zooplankton changed dramatically after 1 day and again by 6 days later, gradually returning to the original community by 2 weeks after the initial rainfall. Zooplankton responded within a day with a two fold increase in the adult stages of the calanoid copepod Oithona sp., followed a week later by nauplii and adult Acartia bispinosa. The influx of adult Oithona indicates resting populations that were previously under sampled by our plankton net. The plankton community returned to the initial state by 2 weeks, to being dominated by a centric diatom and A. bispinosa after 5 weeks. Dilution of the lagoon reached a maximum of 0.25 d-1, while growth rates of the phytoplankton population reached a maximum of 1 d-1, and A. bispinosa nauplii growth of 2.5 d-1. Declines in chlorophyll biomass from the maximum 10 μg l-1, at a rate of approximately 10% d-1 are consistent with the modelled uptake by zooplankton. The nutrients from runoff, growth and the influx of new zooplankton into the water column, resulted in a depleted δ13C and δ15N stable isotope signature of A. bispinosa by 2-4 ppt within 1-2 weeks, consistent with diatom growth and the terrestrial supply of depleted nutrients. δ34S of A. bispinosa was enriched by 2 ppt for 1-2 weeks after rainfall, but unlike C and N, returned to pre-rainfall levels by the end of the study period. We suggest that plankton studies in coastal lakes with variable water levels that are not tidally driven, should account for the influence of changes in water levels to help explain data variability. Crown Copyright © 2009

Beyond hydrography: Daily ichthyoplankton variability and short term oceanographic events on the Sydney continental shelf

Surfaceichthyoplankton concentrations along a shore-normal transact across the Sydney continental shelf and upper slope changed between three replicate nights in January and April of 1994. Over 70 families of fish were recorded, which, during January, included: Myctophidae (49% of individuals), Carangidae (14%), Gonostomatidae (11%) and Pomacentridae (8%); and during April included: Gonorhynchidae (43%), Myctophidae (10%), Berycidae (11%) and Serranidae (6%). Multidimensional scaling analysis identified inshore and offshore communities, which nightly moved between the nearshore and mid-shelf stations. During January no distinct near-surface water masses could be identified from the temperature-salinity data, although the shelf waters were under the influence of forcing by the local wind stress and the East Australian Current. Good agreement between the cross-shore transport in the near-surface layer and the temporal variability of the icthyoplankton was nevertheless found. The sampling during April was performed during a period of relatively steady oceanographic conditions, and two water masses were identified from the hydrographic data. Temporal ichthyoplankton variability at any station was correspondingly less during the April period and stable inshore and offshore communities were identified, that shifted with characteristic water masses. The results presented in this paper demonstrate that the large variance often associated with ichthyoplankton distribution within a similar water mass may be interpreted by the dynamics in cross-shelf flows, which has implications for the selection of control sites used when studying environmental impacts of coastal outfalls

Recovery of a freshwater wetland from chemical contamination after an oil spill

In March 2009, a cargo ship spilled 250 tons of heavy fuel oil off the Queensland coast of Australia. The pristine National Park Moreton Island, seven nautical miles to the east of the spill site, was most affected by the oil slick. Contamination of the island's shoreline was widespread, with freshwater wetlands particularly slow to recover as clean-up needed to be carefully managed to avoid damage to this sensitive ecosystem. During the clean-up process on Moreton Island a monitoring program was initiated using traditional chemical analysis in combination with bioanalytical techniques to assess the extent and variability in contamination at sites on the shoreline and freshwater wetlands. Water accommodated fractions (WAF) of oil residues from samples taken directly after the spill on the shoreline showed the same level of toxic potency as samples from the wetland while baseline-toxicity equivalent concentrations (baseline-TEQ) and 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin equivalent concentrations (TCDDEQ) were much lower in oil collected from the sandy beach. The umuC assay for genotoxicity and the E-SCREEN assay for estrogenic effects indicated the extracts were not genotoxic or estrogenic. PAH concentrations and toxicity in grab water samples were below detectable levels, however, extracts from time integrated silicone passive samplers deployed for several weeks at the contaminated sites gave measurable responses in the bioassays with TCDDEQ levels increased relative to the control site. The low levels of baseline-TEQ and TCDDEQ present after 8 months had further decreased 6 months later indicating satisfactory recovery of this pristine ecosystem after an oil spill. © 2011 The Royal Society of Chemistry