2018-2019 Report Card FAQ

The results presented in the Report Card are divided into four environments (freshwater, estuarine, inshore marine and offshore marine) covering seven zones. 

The zones are:

• Two freshwater zones called Ross freshwater basin and Black freshwater basin.
• Two estuarine zones called Ross estuarine zone and Black estuarine zone.
• Two inshore marine zones, called Cleveland Bay/Ross inshore marine zone (referred to as Cleveland Bay) and Halifax Bay/Black inshore marine zone (referred to as Halifax Bay).
• One offshore marine zone.

Each zone is scored for: 

• Water quality (based on nutrient levels and physical and chemical conditions)
• Habitat (including riparian vegetation, saltmarsh, mangrove, seagrass and coral reefs)
• Litter abundance (compared to previous years)

Through this report, we aim to improve the management of our waterways to benefit our region. For more information on how the Report Card is developed and in-depth results see the Methods Report for the Townsville Dry Tropics Annual Report Card and the Townsville Dry Tropics 2018-2019 Report Card Result Reports. 

The data used to prepare the Report Card is sourced from our Partners and includes industry and community data, ports monitoring and existing Townsville City Council, Queensland and Australian government-funded monitoring. Compilation of this data is a careful and considered process and takes some time.

In preparation for a report card, data needs to be collated and validated and undergoes comprehensive analysis. Before it is ready to be released in the report card, this preparation and analysis takes three to nine months, depending on the data set. Time is also needed to review the results and reports including thorough peer review by both the Technical Working Group and the Reef Independent Science Panel. 

The Partnership is committed to minimising the time between data collection and report card release, to improve the timeliness and relevance of the report card. 

The 2017-2018 Pilot Report Card was the very first report card released by the Townsville Dry Tropics Partnership for Healthy Waters. Since the release of the Pilot Report Card last year, the Partnership has been working hard to improve the readability of the report card, in addition to improving the scoring technique and including new data. 

Changes in the 2018-2019 Report Card include:
1. Simplifying report card the ‘coasters’. We have simplified the coasters to make the Report Card grades easier to understand. 

2. Comparing habitat scores to Management targets rather than Pre-European/pre-development targets. The Partnership decided to score against management targets to better allow the community and managers to assess whether management actions within the community are improving the state of the environment. In the 2017-2018 Pilot Report Card, the habitat extent of freshwater and estuary habitat was compared to Pre-European/pre-development targets. In contrast, the 2018-2019 Report card was compared to management targets. Management targets are designed to protect the ecological value of an ecosystem, while also considering the socio-economic values of the region. Pre-European/pre-development targets represent what the environment may have been like before European settlement. In urban environments, often pre-European/pre-development targets are unachievable due to the social-economic requirements of an existing urban centre and the extent of change resulting from development. Thus, scoring against pre-development targets means that areas will often have poor scores with limited ways of improving the score. A comparison of the baseline data used for the two report cards is shown in the table below. For information on water quality targets for the Townsville region, see the details here.

3. Inclusion of new data which incorporates:

• A new artificial barriers index, comprising of fish barriers and impoundment length, in the freshwater and estuarine reporting zones. The scores for the artificial barriers and habitat indices were averaged together to generate the overall score for the Habitat reporting category.
• A new litter index, which measures the amount of litter collected per unit effort during 2018-2019 in clean-up events compared to the average amount collected per unit effort in the previous four years (2014-15 to 2017-2018 financial year).
• Offshore water quality, comprising the total suspended solids and chlorophyll indicators.
• Nine new freshwater monitoring sites within the Black freshwater basin. 
• Five new estuarine monitoring sites within the Black estuarine zone.
• Coral cover data collected by Reef Check from two sites were included into the calculation of the coral cover indicator.

Grey areas indicate there was no data available for the indicator to be scored. This is because either:

1. there is no monitoring program that collects the data for the indicator within that reporting zone, or
2. data is available but there is currently no suitable method to score the indicator. 

The Partnership is committed to filling the gaps in the data. Greater information on the region will provide a better understanding of the ecological and socio-economic condition of the region. 

Short, pulse events, such as floods, cyclones and other impact events can severely impact waterway ecosystem health. Environments that are relatively healthy and with low or no day-to-day pollution inputs have higher resilience and so can more readily recover from these events. 

For example, in the 2019 Report Card, the results show that the flood impacts to the seagrass meadows in Cleveland Bay appear to be considerably less than originally expected. This is likely due to several years of good growing conditions prior to the flood, which provided inherent resilience to the impacts of the flood. As a result, seagrass biomass (the total amount of seagrass) declined but the overall area of seagrass meadows remained above the long-term average. 

However, it is still possible there are long term impacts that are not yet recorded. Continued monitoring is needed to assess future waterway health.

For more information on seagrass monitoring in Cleveland Bay undertaken for the Port of Townsville, click here.