A spatial management tool for seagrasses in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area
Conference Contribution ResearchOnline@JCUAbstract
The Great Barrier Reef (GBR) World Heritage Area includes one of the world's largest seagrass ecosystems (35 000 km2) with approximately 20% of the world's seagrass species. Key to understanding and managing this important ecosystem is reliable data on seagrass distribution, abundance and species composition, and how this changes through time. A range of mapping and monitoring programs since the 1980s have documented GBR seagrasses. These include GBR-wide coastal and seabed seagrass mapping through the 1980s and 1990s and a biodiversity mapping project in 2004; reef-top meadow mapping adjacent to shipping lanes as part of an oil spill response atlas in the remote northern GBR (2011-2014); and small-scale but long-term (>15 years) monitoring programs at coastal ports (e.g. Cairns and Gladstone). Until recently managers could not access the full range of seagrass spatial data in a format that included a range of scales, site and meadow information, nor could they interrogate the reliability of the dataset. We found, evaluated and incorporated over 300 seagrass spatial data sets collected from the GBR spanning 30 years into two publicly available GIS layers. We include information on seagrass presence/absence, percent cover, biomass, species present, dominant species, meadow area and survey date. This management tool allows seagrass information to be categorized depending on management questions regarding development, zoning, and planning, and is available for resource managers to model connectivity, better understand seagrass change, identify regions where seagrass information is deficient, and identify key seagrass areas for dugong and turtles.
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13th International Coral Reef Symposium
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1
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Honolulu, HI, USA
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International Coral Reef Symposium
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Honolulu, HI, USA
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