Essential requirements for catchment sediments to have ongoing impacts to water clarity in the great barrier reef

Gibbs, Mark T.

Essential requirements for catchment sediments to have ongoing impacts to water clarity in the great barrier reef

2016

Gibbs, Mark T.

Increasing concerns over decreasing water quality and the state of coral reefs and seagrass meadows along the inshore and mid-shelf regions of the Great Barrier Reef has led to a large-scale government catchment sediment and nutrient reduction program. However the mechanistic understanding of how fine sediments washed out of catchments and transported within flood plumes leads to ongoing increases in turbidity at locations far downstream from estuaries long after flood plumes have dissipated is poorly understood. Essential criteria which need to be met in order for catchment-derived sediments to play a major role in nearshore water quality are proposed. Preliminary estimates of these essential criteria suggest that it is dynamically possible for fine sediments washed out of catchments during floods to be preferentially re-mobilised at downstream locations following the dissipation of flood plumes. However the longer-term influence of catchment-derived material on water quality is dependent upon the rate of degradation of floc particles that fall out of flood plumes and the rate of background deposition; neither of which are well quantified.

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