Researching healthier marine ecosystems

Wealth from Oceans Flagship research will provide fisheries, aquatic industries and recreational marine users with access to healthy and productive regional marine ecosystems.

• 1 March 2006 | Updated 14 October 2011

• Introduction
• Goals of the project
• Future plans

Introduction

With a huge concentration of people around its coastline, Australia’s coastal environments are subject to a range of impacts brought about by their use and proximity to population centres.

The impacts on coastal regions are typically:

• environmental damage from human activities
• economic development and exploitation altering the surrounding topography
• pressures on ecosystems through recreational use.

A joint research program studying the impacts of human activity and the marine environment is being spearheaded by: 

• New South Wales Government
• CSIRO's Wealth from Oceans Flagship.

Goals of the project

The research aims to provide Australian fisheries, aquatic industries and recreational marine users with access to healthy and productive regional marine ecosystems.

The A$1.5 million, five-year agreement links research specialists in marine ecosystems with the Government agencies and authorities responsible for coastal and marine management.

The program aims to model and predict how these intricate marine ecosystems react to the differing demands and impacts from the users of our oceans.

Future plans

As a new approach to ocean and coastal ecosystem management, this system involves applying a series of strategies to maintain the function of ecosystems and allow human use.

Over the life of the project, the following issues and their ecosystem impacts will be considered:

• links between sustainable farmland in the New South Wales regions of Clarence, Hunter and Pittwater and their catchments and downstream fisheries production
• planning and management of coastal infrastructure associated with large cities including:
  • port facilities
  • shipping
  • pollution
  • land run-off
• management of rural landscapes and their impacts on aquatic systems that may affect
  • fisheries
  • aquaculture
  • marine tourism
• regional oceanography, including the East Australian Current, and its links with:
  • climate
  • industry production
  • development
• risk assessment of activities that affect the quality of ecosystems.

Find out about our work with Our resilient coastal Australia.