Reassessment of intertidal macroalgal communities near to and distant from salmon farms and an evaluation of using drones to survey macroalgal distribution

Funded Activity Summary

The proposed expansion of salmon farming to new sites in south eastern Tasmania earlier this year has already elicited opposition from some neighbouring residents, wild abalone fishers and environmental groups, which has been well displayed in the media. One of their major concerns is lack of information on whether salmon farms are affecting intertidal and subtidal macroalgae, and no ongoing monitoring of these habitats. This highlights the importance of repeating the survey eleven years later to assess changes in intertidal macroalgal abundance and species composition around salmon farms.

Drones are increasingly being used to record agricultural environments, including salmon farms. However, methods to quantitatively assess coastal environmental change using drones, such as macroalgal distribution and abundance have not been assessed. The effectiveness of this technique to monitor salmon farms is needed to maximise usage of this data and before it can be incorporated into monitoring programs.

This project will provide information important to several FRDC Strategic Priority Areas.
• Program 1: Environment: Themes 2 and 4: Habitat and Ecosystem Protection and Ecologically Sustainable Development, especially providing information to the community to demonstrate improvements in the aquaculture industry’s environmental performance and quantifying the environmental carrying capacity of aquaculture operations.
• Program 2: Industry: Theme 6 and 7: Resource Access and Allocation, and Production, Growth and Profitability, especially increasing knowledge among diverse groups of stakeholders about each other’s expectations for resource access and allocation, and increase and diversify opportunities for the aquaculture sector.
• Program 3: Communities: Theme 10: Resilient and Supportive Communities, especially understanding and influencing the community perceptions about the fishing and aquaculture industry and improving interactions between them, and increasing the community’s capacity to accept and incorporate higher levels of aquaculture activity.



Objectives:
1. To repeat the assessment of intertidal macroalgal composition and abundance near to and distant from salmon farms in the Huon and D’Entrecasteaux Channel region eleven years after the initial assessment.
2. To evaluate the potential of using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones) to monitor macroalgal distribution.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 20-01-2015

End Date: 31-12-2016

Funding Scheme: Funding Scheme not available

Funding Amount: $61,915.04

Funder: Fisheries Research and Development Corporation

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

There are no FoR codes available for this funding activity

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

Co-Management | Distribution | Electronic Monitoring | Habitat | Waste

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