Management Concern: High    

Adequacy of Information: Moderate

Summary extracts from Outlook Report 2009

• There are traces of pesticides in the Great Barrier Reef especially in inshore areas.
• Increased concentrations of suspended sediments and agricultural chemicals are having significant effects inshore close to agricultural areas. Much continues to be done to improve water quality entering the Great Barrier Reef but it will be decades before the benefits are seen.
  

What do we know?

Relevant pages from Outlook Online include:

• Terrestrial run-off and its effects on reef ecology
  
• Pesticides in marine mammals
  
• Modelling of catchment pesticide and nutrient influences in the Great Barrier Reef
• River mouth monitoring - nutrient, sediment and pesticide loads 
• Inshore reef health - nutrient, sediment and pesticide loads
• Water Quality in the Great Barrier Reef - guidelines and current status
• Pesticides detected in the waters of the Great Barrier Reef
  

Existing policies and management actions

• Water Quality Guidelines for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (2009)
  
• Regional Water Quality Improvement Plans
  
• Reef Rescue Marine Monitoring Program
  
• Improving water quality
• Coastal ecosystem protection

Future management actions

• Future management requirements in this area are being guided by ongoing assessment of emerging research outcomes and issues identified by the Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report 2009.

Defined research questions

• What are the implications of interactions, and any thresholds and synergies, between declining water quality and other broad-scale disturbances (e.g. crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks, storms, and mass coral bleaching)?
  
• What are the potential consequences of alternative land use and resource management systems on coral bleaching and ecological thresholds, and on social and economic systems in the Great Barrier Reef?

Related information

• Current Research and Monitoring