After taking to the skies via helicopter over Weipa, James Cook University’s Centre for Tropical Water and Aquatic Ecosystem Research (TropWATER) team turned their attention to seagrass monitoring in and around the waters of the Port of Mackay and Port of Hay Point in October.
More than 350 sites in fact were monitored in just over a week as part of North Queensland Bulk Ports’ (NQBP) ambient monitoring program, which also tracks coral health and water quality. For the survey, a remote camera system is used from research boats to explore the seafloor and identify and record conditions of seagrass. This data is then taken back to JCU for analysis and maps and condition reports for annual seagrass health are produced.
ABC Tropical North’s Melanie Groves interviewed Dr Paul York, TropWATER’s Senior Scientific Officer, on the details of the survey (Listen).
The seagrass monitoring program is one of the original aspects of NQBP and JCU’s partnership, which is more than 25 years old. JCU monitors 30,000 hectares of seagrass at NQBP’s ports. Seagrasses are a critical component of the marine environment as they are a nursery ground for prawns and fish and are food for turtles and dugongs.
Additionally, seagrasses trap and stabilise sediment protecting the coastline and are a sink for carbon.
The data on the seagrass is an invaluable resource that enables NQBP to track distribution, density and seasonality, establish naturally occurring fluctuations and determine how external factors may potentially impact these important communities.
In addition to informing our own environmental activities and port operations, NQBP data contributes to advances in an international body of seagrass knowledge through JCU's academic research and regional report cards developed to help monitor the health of our waterways.
This data can be viewed on our interactive seagrass monitoring dashboard.
