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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
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