Impacts Of COVID19 On The Australian Seafood Industry: Extending The Assessment To Prepare For Uncertain Futures
Funder
Fisheries Research and Development Corporation
Funding Amount
$179,564.00
Summary
In March 2021 the FRDC published an initial rapid assessment - Impacts of COVID19 on the Australian Seafood Industry: January-June 2020 - of the direct and indirect effects of disruption to seafood production, supply chains and markets caused by the global COVID19 pandemic. That assessment covered the initial period of the shocks wrought by COVID19 and demonstrated the availability of data to support rapid assessment in such conditions.
However gaps remain to be addressed, including: < ....In March 2021 the FRDC published an initial rapid assessment - Impacts of COVID19 on the Australian Seafood Industry: January-June 2020 - of the direct and indirect effects of disruption to seafood production, supply chains and markets caused by the global COVID19 pandemic. That assessment covered the initial period of the shocks wrought by COVID19 and demonstrated the availability of data to support rapid assessment in such conditions.
However gaps remain to be addressed, including: 1. comprehensive coverage of production effects in fishing and aquaculture across all Australian jurisdictions, 2. coverage of impacts on recreational fishing activity and Indigenous commercial seafood activities; 3. assessment of emerging medium-term impacts (such as changes in Australian consumer purchasing behaviours, structural effects in labour markets and export-oriented sectors, effects of alterations in tourism patterns); and the interactions with non-CV-19 impacts (such as trade tensions affecting exports); and 4. the effectiveness of crisis responses. Furthermore, the capacity to access data to support rapid assessment in times of systemic shock needs to be consolidated. Finally, insights from rapid assessments need to be harvested to provide Australia with a framework for assessment of systemic (i.e. large-scale, multi-level) risk to the Australian seafood community.
This project addresses these needs through a follow-up Impact assessment report which is more comprehensive, given data availability. The follow up report will include case studies of crisis responses by key government and industry decision makers, and the lessons learned for preparedness for future shocks. It will develop a Guideline for rapid assessment of economic and social effects in fisheries and aquaculture, which will contribute to FRDC's capacity for rapid appraisal and assessments. The guideline will include quality assurance steps to be applied to rapid assessments. Finally, the project proposes to draw insights from this more comprehensive assessment to identify what risk factors to assess, and how, in order to prepare for systemic shocks in future. Objectives: 1. Complete assessment of impact of COVID-19 on Australia's commercial, recreational and charter fisheries and aquaculture sectors for the period July 2020 to June 2021 2. Determine what were effective responses and interventions using selected case studies to inform preparedness for future shocks 3. Document all data streams and their source (organisation, private data, public domain data) - STOP / GO MILESTONE 4. Develop guidelines for data production, governance and use when rapid situational assessments are required. 5. Develop a framework for systematic risk assessment 6. Develop 'data architecture' for a portal to access live/near-real time data to support early detection and risk assessment of large-scale shocks (architecture to include: data sources, access and permissions; display; outputs) Read moreRead less
Developing Automated Data Cleansing And Validation Processes For Fisheries Catch And Effort Data
Funder
Fisheries Research and Development Corporation
Funding Amount
$397,750.00
Summary
During a recent national Fisheries Statistics Working Group meeting, data managers from all Australian states highlighted and discussed the likely high prevalence of inaccurate or fraudulent data supplied by fishers and accrued through data-entry errors. Current data quality control measures in each jurisdiction are largely heterogeneous, undocumented and often rely on manual checks by clerks or analysts that are labour intensive and costly and not routinely executed. Because many of these check ....During a recent national Fisheries Statistics Working Group meeting, data managers from all Australian states highlighted and discussed the likely high prevalence of inaccurate or fraudulent data supplied by fishers and accrued through data-entry errors. Current data quality control measures in each jurisdiction are largely heterogeneous, undocumented and often rely on manual checks by clerks or analysts that are labour intensive and costly and not routinely executed. Because many of these checks occur during manual data entry of paper-based records, these are likely to become obsolete as reliance on electronic reporting increases, with data entered directly by fishers through online portals or mobile applications.
There is a need to develop automated data cleansing and diagnostic procedures that can be applied post-hoc or retrospectively to large fisheries databases to detect and flag errors and outliers and provide subsets of reliable catch and effort data for stock assessments and other analyses. This project will contribute towards addressing these issues, by developing automated processes to routinely assess newly entered fisheries catch and effort data for errors, retrospectively quantify error rates in existing data and assess their likely influence on the outputs of stock assessment analyses. The outcomes will help improve the quality and accuracy of catch and effort data used in routine stock assessments, and in turn lead to more sustainable management of wild capture fisheries resources.
Objectives: 1. Review existing data quality control and cleansing processes applied to fisheries catch and effort databases in all state and commonwealth jurisdictions. 2. Develop a suite of generic algorithmic and statistical approaches to detect and flag different error types (e.g., anomalous, missing and outlying values) in fisheries catch and effort relational databases. 3. Trial the above approaches with several case-study fisheries datasets to assess the performance of different data cleansing approaches, quantify error rates and types and assess the sensitivity of catch and effort statistics to these errors and outliers. 4. On the basis of the above findings, recommend a standard national approach for data cleansing and validation of fisheries catch and effort data. 5. Customise and integrate the generic approaches into NSW fisheries database systems to implement automated data cleansing processes. 6. Extend the results of the project to fishers and industry representatives to encourage greater accuracy in fisheries catch and effort data reporting. Read moreRead less
Pacific Oyster Feeds And Feeding In South Australian Waters: Towards Ecosystem Based Management
Funder
Fisheries Research and Development Corporation
Funding Amount
$391,000.00
Summary
To help establish an improved basis for ecologically sustainable aquaculture development and ecosystem based resource management, there is a strong research need to a) determine what Pacific oysters, blue mussels and cockles consume in the unique, typically large, shallow, high salinity and apparently low productivity waters of South Australian (SA) bays, and b) understand the temporal and spatial fluctuation in food availability, and c) the relationship between food availability and Pacific oys ....To help establish an improved basis for ecologically sustainable aquaculture development and ecosystem based resource management, there is a strong research need to a) determine what Pacific oysters, blue mussels and cockles consume in the unique, typically large, shallow, high salinity and apparently low productivity waters of South Australian (SA) bays, and b) understand the temporal and spatial fluctuation in food availability, and c) the relationship between food availability and Pacific oyster farm productivity. This need is driven by: 1) bivalves could not be included in the modeling of carrying capacity of Spencer Gulf mainly due to the lack of knowledge on the trophic function and feeding physiology of oysters; 2) the oyster industry has been experiencing average Pacific oyster mortalities between stocking and harvesting on an ongoing basis of 35% (up to 50%) in some areas, and believe this loss is associated with a complex interaction between food availability, oyster condition and a variety of biological, chemical and physical stressors; and 3) an interest of the State Government, industry and potential new aquaculture entrants to maximize the use of existing lease allocations and diversify the bivalve species farmed as a risk management strategy for a potential OsHV-1 µvar outbreak in SA. Additional Pacific oyster or new species stock will potentially increase competition for the limited available food.
Objectives: 1. Determine what Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas), blue mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis) and mud cockles (Katelysia sp) are feeding on in selected SA bays, and identify the overlap in food resource utilization among all 3 species. 2. Determine the temporal and spatial variability in the food availability of Pacific oysters, mussels and cockles in selected SA bays. 3. Determine key factors affecting oyster performance (growth, condition and survival) in selected SA bays. 4. Determine the factors regulating the relationship between oyster growth/condition and sustainable production in selected locations in SA. 5. Transfer the results of this project to interested stakeholders, in particular the SA oyster industry and SA Government aquaculture policy makers. Read moreRead less
Toxigenic Vibrio Baselines And Optimum Storage, Transport And Shelf-life Conditions To Inform Cold Supply Chains In The North Australian Tropical Rock Oyster Industry
Funder
Fisheries Research and Development Corporation
Funding Amount
$199,300.00
Summary
Internationally, Tropical Rock Oysters have a poor safety reputation with Vibrio at the top of the list. While a pro-active not reactive approach to vibrio food safety is essential for product assurance and branding, effort needs to be proportional to risk. And risk assessment also needs to be informed by real data. There are certainly knowledge gaps for north Australia, but we know seawater contains up to 42 Vibrio spp. including several known toxigenic species in addition to the human pathogen ....Internationally, Tropical Rock Oysters have a poor safety reputation with Vibrio at the top of the list. While a pro-active not reactive approach to vibrio food safety is essential for product assurance and branding, effort needs to be proportional to risk. And risk assessment also needs to be informed by real data. There are certainly knowledge gaps for north Australia, but we know seawater contains up to 42 Vibrio spp. including several known toxigenic species in addition to the human pathogens Vibrio parahaemolyticus (Vp) and V. vulnificus (Vv). We know Vp responds to temperature but Vv does not. And we know Vv concentrations in seawater are higher in the wet season compared to the dry, and more shellfish are Vp and Vv positive in the wet season. So if vibrio diversity and abundance in TRO is seasonal (as shown elsewhere), it is likely that Vibrio spp. infections in humans will also follow a seasonal trend which has implications for risk management. A major bottleneck is that we don’t know how vibrios respond to storage and transport temperatures in TRO. We know that the Pacific and Sydney Rocks respond differently so it is not ‘one size fits all’ and it is certain TROs will be different again. In addition to identifying vibrio baselines in TRO and developing tests for toxigenic species, we will identify the best post-harvest storage and transport temperatures and assess TRO shelf life at realistic storage temperatures. This will provide fundamental information to inform cold supply chains that will support farmers, wholesalers and retailers of TROs from north Australia. We can also use this information to prepare an appropriate and regionally relevant vibrio risk profile for TRO in northern Australia to assist initial risk management activities. This information will provide the developing TRO industry with the knowledge needed to ensure an exemplary reputation, thus giving access to premium markets.
Objectives: 1. Measure vibrio baseline in Tropical Rock Oysters and develop tests to vibrio species that are toxigenic to oysters and humans 2. Identify optimum storage and transport temperatures to inform post-harvest cold supply chains 3. Assess TRO shelf life at realistic storage temperatures to maximise product quality and inform cold supply chains 4. Use objective 1-3 outcomes to produce a risk profile for vibrio in north Australian TRO that will support the industry as it seeks to deliver a safe, premium product Read moreRead less
Economically efficient green logistics through cyber physical systems. Economically efficient green logistics through cyber physical systems. This project aims to realize green logistics by researching how to run diesel-powered heavy-duty milk trucks economically and efficiently on liquefied natural gas (LNG) and demonstrating to logistics companies that LNG conversion will reduce operating costs and emissions. Transportation systems account for 18% of Australia's carbon emissions, and diesel-po ....Economically efficient green logistics through cyber physical systems. Economically efficient green logistics through cyber physical systems. This project aims to realize green logistics by researching how to run diesel-powered heavy-duty milk trucks economically and efficiently on liquefied natural gas (LNG) and demonstrating to logistics companies that LNG conversion will reduce operating costs and emissions. Transportation systems account for 18% of Australia's carbon emissions, and diesel-powered logistics vehicles are a major contributor. However, converting these trucks to LNG requires strong evidence to convince logistics companies of the benefits of shifting to green logistics. An increase in logistics productivity is expected to increase Australia’s gross domestic product by $2 billion, while this research should also provide vital data on sustainability issues and LNG conversions.Read moreRead less
Industrial Transformation Training Centres - Grant ID: IC190100026
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$4,969,663.00
Summary
ARC Training Centre for Cell and Tissue Engineering Technologies. The ARC Training Centre for Cell and Tissue Engineering Technologies aims to provide training to create a highly skilled workforce for the tissue engineering and regenerative medicine sector and to enhance research performance and innovation in Australia through fundamental and applied research carried out in industry-led PhD projects. The research aims to address major aspects of the manufacturing and commercialisation pathway an ....ARC Training Centre for Cell and Tissue Engineering Technologies. The ARC Training Centre for Cell and Tissue Engineering Technologies aims to provide training to create a highly skilled workforce for the tissue engineering and regenerative medicine sector and to enhance research performance and innovation in Australia through fundamental and applied research carried out in industry-led PhD projects. The research aims to address major aspects of the manufacturing and commercialisation pathway and barriers faced by the sector, namely improving process efficiencies, enabling early-stage scale-up (cell/tissue) and development of the sector's supply chain. The knowledge created and research undertaken would help to accelerate commercialisation in regenerative medicine, tissue engineering and cell therapies.Read moreRead less