The Perth Region NRM Marine Program has focused on a Marine Indicators Project in 2008-2009. Below is an outline of the project and the project reports.
Marine Indicators Project
(Department of Fisheries and Murdoch University)
The marine waters of the Perth Region contain a diverse variety of flora and fauna living in an equally diverse range of habitats. This project was established to determine marine baseline data on the condition of marine habitats and marine flora and fauna, potential impacts and recognised threats, for which there is currently little data. Four studies were funded under this project, with the aim of determining potential key marine indicators.
Classifying shallow water benthic habitats of the Perth Region (Murdoch University)
Knowledge of the marine habitats is important for understanding the broader functioning of the marine environment. One method of acquiring this information is through the production of marine habitat maps, which was the main purpose of this project. This study was extremely successful in producing a spatially-explicit, high resolution map of the diverse categories of benthic marine habitats located in the shallow waters of the Perth Region. A Quickbird satellite image was taken of the Swan marine region. The map was then “groundtruthed”, whereby underwater photos were taken at various locations using a drop-camera system, to verify the satellite images. Analysis involved classifying the various benthic habitat types and a GIS database was established to house the habitat map and its information.
Development of a long-term program to monitor coastal communities within the Perth Region (Department of Fisheries)
Two of the most significant threats to the shallow water marine ecosystems within the Perth Region are the impacts from human activities and the effects of climate change.
This study used an ecosystem based management approach to survey key species and their associated habitats, inside and outside “no-take” sanctuary zones at Marmion, Shoalwater Bay and Rottnest Island. This project was unique in a number of ways. Firstly, the monitoring program designed to examine the effects of sanctuary zones, was a first for this type of work. Secondly, the data was able to be collected before the sanctuary zones were established, providing an additional opportunity to examine the before and after effects of these closed areas. Thirdly, while the use of video and still photography is common for monitoring tropical coral reefs, it has only begun to be utilised for temperate reefs.
Development of cost-effective indices to monitor the nearshore fish communities of the Perth Region (Department of Fisheries)
The nearshore fish communities of the Perth Region are subject to the combined impact of strong fishing pressure and environmental degradation and the Department of Fisheries (DoF) has been monitoring the annual recruitment levels of 7 key nearshore fish species for the past 10 years. Prior to this study, data for all captured species had been archived but only those data relating to the seven key species had been collated and analysed.
This project examined archived Fisheries data to determine its value in assessing long-term change in abundance of nearshore fish communities of the Perth Region. It also examined the potential to develop a low-cost index of nearshore fish community status in the Perth Region, by expanding the spatial and temporal resolution of the existing DoF recruitment monitoring program.
Cockburn Sound Trawl (Department of Fisheries)
Cockburn Sound, a vitally important ecosystem, has been exposed to pressure from substantial recreational fishing, rapid population growth and urban and industrial development since the 1950’s. As a result, the marine fauna have been exposed to ongoing changes in environmental quality. Many of these marine fauna are recreationally important and thus make them excellent indicators for monitoring the impacts of environmental change in these nearshore environments. This study conducted a number of trawls in Cockburn Sound and used the collected fauna to describe the community structure associated with key indicator species ie blue swimmer crab and pink snapper. The community structure was then assessed for changes in distribution and abundance of these key species by comparison with long term datasets from the Department of Fisheries. Upon completion of this study, a monitoring program has been outlined that will monitor the community composition of sub-tidal embayment fauna, focusing on the key indicator species blue swimmer crab and pink snapper within Cockburn Sound.
Marine Indicators
In 2008, four marine indicators projects were successfully completed. While each project focused on different components of the marine environment, they all shared an overarching aim that was to identify potential key marine indicators that could be used in long term marine monitoring in the Perth Region.
All projects were presented at a Marine Indicators Workshop, held in October 2008 facilitated by Craig Salt. Stakeholders from State Government, Universities, Industry Bodies, Rottnest Island Authority, The WA Museum and Perth Region NRM attended the all day workshop. The aim of the workshop was to provide an overview of each of the projects, allowing participants to see what had been achieved. Discussions that followed were focused on how best to use the new and existing information, for future marine monitoring and management.
In late 2008, the decision was made to commission a review of existing knowledge, including the four recently completed marine indicators projects, relevant to monitoring the condition of the marine environment in the Perth Region. Cardno Ecology Lab Pty Ltd was employed to undertake this project, which is due for completion in August 2009. The aim of this project is to produce recommendations for a suite of indicators that would measure a range of
different components of the ecosystem and would allow the detection of changes for a range of human disturbances.
In the long term, the results of this project will form the basis of a Perth Region NRM marine monitoring program, run in conjunction with monitoring programs of the major management agencies.
Please find the reports attached below:
Perth Region NRM Marine Indicators and Monitoring Review
Project 1_ Developing long-term indicators for the sub-tidal embayment communities of Cockburn Sound
* please contact Perth Region NRM for a copy of this report directly
Project 2_ Development of a long-term program to monitor coastal communities within the Swan region
* please contact Perth Region NRM for a copy of this report directly
Project 3_ Attachment 1_Implementing a recreational fishing log book program
Project 3_ Development of cost-effective indices to monitor the nearshore fish communities of the Swan Region
Project 4_ Classifying shallow benthic habitats in the Swan Marine Region