Home » 2021 Report Card » 2018 – 2019 Report Card
DOWNLOAD THE 2018-2019
REPORT CARD HERE!
- The Townsville Dry Tropics Report Card 2019 (the Report Card) indicates that overall, water quality across the Townsville region is moderate to very good.
- The Ross Estuary and Black Estuary both fared positively, scoring a B Grade (Good) for Water Quality and Habitat.
- Cleveland and Halifax Bays both have room for improvement, scoring a C (Moderate) for Water Quality and Habitat.
- The offshore marine environment scored the only A (Very Good) in the Report Card, for water quality.
- Social surveys conducted in 2017 showed that residents placed a very high value on our waterways for wellbeing and economic reasons. However, the community perceived the health and management of the Reef to be poor.
- Surveys were conducted after two consecutive years of mass coral bleaching on the Reef in 2016 and 2017, which may have strongly influenced the resident’s’ perception of Reef health
Monsoon Updates
- Research suggests that the February 2019 flood event, which saw 1.13 million metric tonnes of water discharged from the Ross River into Cleveland Bay, caused minimal impacts so far to most environments, including offshore coral reefs.
- Flood plumes reached the outer reef within five days but dissipated five days later.
- Seagrass meadows showed a decline in biomass following the floods; however, the overall area of meadows remained above the long-term average.
New to the Report Card!
- The Report Card has expanded to include three new datasets including a new litter indicator, citizen science data on hard coral cover and 14 new monitoring sites in the Black Basin.
- The Report Card shows almost 150,000 pieces of litter were removed from the environment during community clean-ups over the 2018-2019 period.
- According to the Australian Marine Debris Initiative database, the top five items found were hard plastic pieces, broken glass, plastic bags and film remnants, cigarette butts and filters and plastic food packaging.
