eReefs®
a Quantum Leap in Understanding the Great Barrier Reef
The Queensland Government, Telstra, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and CSIRO are proud to announce a new $500,000 funding partnership for the pilot of a new project called eReefs.
This project to begin developing a state of the art, integrated decision support and communication tool for managing the Great Barrier Reef, will be launched this Friday, 5 March by the Great Barrier Reef Foundation’s Chairman, Dr John Schubert.
The pilot phase will demonstrate the potential for eReefs to enhance our understanding of the delicate ecosystem of the Great Barrier Reef and increase our ability to communicate how the Reef will respond to threats such as climate change.
The Reef is complex. It is affected by what happens on land, in the water, and with the weather, and many ecological factors.
eReefs aims to simplify this complexity, integrating and communicating what is known about the Reef and the impacts on it. It will ensure that information is as accurate and up-to-date as possible and then make it available in a form that can be understood by all.
“Most importantly it will link what’s happening in Reef catchments, the Reef lagoon and in the ocean in one picture, providing policy-makers, the Reef’s managers, researchers, industry and the community with a powerful tool to help make decisions about the Reef’s future,” said CSIRO’s eReefs’ Project Director, Dr Stuart Minchin.
Brett Riley, Group Managing Director Telstra Country Wide, said Telstra is pleased to support the fight to preserve one of Australia’s national treasures.
“We are using telecommunications in many ways to bring about positive environmental outcomes. In particular, we are committed to using telecommunications to reduce our own carbon footprint and we are helping many other leading organizations to do the same.
“eReefs brings all that together, and makes it real. It’s a project that we hope will make fundamental progress to better understand the changing dynamics of the Great Barrier Reef and act on them accordingly.”
Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM) Director General, John Bradley, said the Government committed to the pilot recognizing the potential for the project to provide a clearer picture on water quality outcomes from the catchment to the reef lagoon.
“All the best scientific evidence had demonstrated the need for urgent action through investment and new regulation to improve water quality on the reef,” Mr Bradley said.
“The eReefs pilot builds on our existing monitoring and science to not only improve our understanding of reef water quality but to be able to communicate it clearly to key stakeholders.”
Similar data integration systems have been used successfully for water and weather in Australia to help gather better information about the effects of climate change on our environment.
A good example is the Australian Water Resources Information System (AWRIS), which collates information about river flows, groundwater levels, reservoir volumes, water use and water entitlements and trades from more than 200 data sources across Australia.1
1information Sheet 3 Australian Government/ Bureau of Meteorology, The Australian Water Resources Information System.
From left to right: Chris Lowe (State Director, Telstra Enterprise and Government), Dr Stuart Minchin (CSIRO Project Director), Mr Bill Dunn (Managing Director Telstra Countrywide, Queensland) Dr John Schubert (GBRF Chairman), Mrs Judy Stewart (GBRF Managing Director), Mr John Bradley (Director General, Department of Environment & Resource Management, Queensland Government), Professor Paul Greenfield (Chairman GBRF International Science Advisory Committee), Dr Andrew Johnson (Group Executive, Environment, CSIRO).