Managing ecosystem interactions across differing environments: building flexibility and risk assurance into environmental management strategies

Funded Activity Summary

This project addresses FRDC program 1 (Environment) priority 23.
In order to double production by 2030 the Salmon industry in Tasmania must consider alternate production approaches and expansion into new areas. However, maintaining high environmental performance (a priority for both the industry and its regulators) requires an understanding of how farming in new areas might change environmental interactions. In order to ensure that management remains best practice, and farms continue to be efficient and sustainable, assessment of the local scale impact/ recovery dynamics and potential interactions with other resource users is required in newly developed farming environments and under different farming technologies. In addition understanding how farms interact with the various processes and ecosystems in the water-bodies where they occur and the various scales for those interactions (local, medium and broad-scale) will provide an important basis for establishing an effective strategy for system-wide management, including management of interactions with other users of the water-bodies.
It is clear from discussions with various resource users (i.e. fish farmers and commercial and recreational fishers) that the perception of potential risks differs between Macquarie Harbour and the southern farming regions. In Macquarie Harbour a critical issue is whether the current on-farm monitoring (and local scale impact indicators are “fit for purpose” i.e. do they support sustainable management by providing an accurate understanding of sediment conditions. Whilst in the new farming areas in the southern regions (Lower Channel/ Storm Bay), although establishing the effectiveness of the local scale monitoring is important, the key concern is whether there may be adverse effects on reef health (i.e. off-site interactions) as a result of increased aquaculture activities. Therefore a key element of this study will be to provide a better assessment of the potential risk to reef systems from sediment deposition and nutrient dispersion from fish farms directly.

Objectives:
1. Establish key recovery response principles and benthic condition criteria for all areas in which farming currently occurs – building on existing understanding to identify both generic and regionally specific performance criteria
2. Improve our understanding of sediment process interactions and recovery responses, in order to ensure that monitoring and management strategies are optimised for each growing region – a key objective will be relating the findings to the most important ecological and resource interactions of salmon farming in each region.
3. To evaluate the potential for interactions between local reef systems and salmon farming – determining the main risk factors, recommending risk appropriate monitoring and assessment approaches and identifying risk mitigation strategies where relevant.
4. To improve our understanding of how local scale (site based) environmental condition data, can integrate with local scale modelling to improve management outcomes – a key goal will be identifying how local scale understanding of sediment processes and benthic pelagic interactions can inform and be informed by regional modelling and management approaches.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-07-2015

End Date: 30-06-2018

Funding Scheme: Funding Scheme not available

Funding Amount: $1,078,729.00

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

Aquaculture | Climate Resilience | RAC TAS | Storm Bay

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