Coastal wetland restoration techniques and evaluation ready for up-scaling (Old ID 26542)

Principal Investigator

First component examines how fish move around floodplains that are impacted following land use conversions. The River herring (Chesapeake Bay) needs access to freshwater and the ocean; population numbers are low because of migration barriers (roads, degraded habitat, dams). The project will include a collaborative study with the Smithsonian Institute to understand how fish access critical habitat during life-stages. The river herring is analogous to the barramundi and mangrove jack in north Queensland: both are highly prized and migrate across catchments and floodplains between freshwater and ocean that have been modified following agricultural expansion and urban sprawl. The second involves investigating how catchment nutrients contribute to coastal hypoxia-fish kills. Like the GBR catchments, nutrient loads in Chesapeake Bay is worsening. The project will include collaborative research on coastal hypoxia and determining the susceptibility of coastal oyster reefs and fisheries to diseases and death (a topic of national interest following a large fish kill in Murray Darling Basin).

12 Jun 2019 - 31 Jul 2022

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