Abstract
The Wet Tropics region of north Queensland contains the highest biological diversity in Australia, has outstanding environmental values, is economically important and located adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Increasing urban development and agricultural intensification in the Wet Tropics has raised serious water quality concerns. To successfully achieve water quality improvement outcomes, the integration of social and biophysical knowledge, in particular clarifying the roles and responsibilities of multiple stakeholders for knowledge integration, has been identified as a key issue and research priority. However, research into the processes supporting knowledge integration and clarifying roles and responsibilities of multiple stakeholders for improving water quality is largely lacking. To fill this gap, we further developed and advanced a social-ecological planning framework to improve our understanding of how multiple-stakeholders can contribute to successful water quality management outcomes. Our conceptual framework, applied in the Tully basin adjacent to the GBR: (1) provides a transdisciplinary approach; (2) enhances the integration of social and biophysical knowledge through tailored methods fitting the local context; (3) shares knowledge and provides recommendations; (4) outlines factors that may promote or inhibit the implementation of freshwater quality objectives; (5) highlights inadequacies of existing government guidelines, policies, and presents co-management opportunities and (6) offers a novel collaborative approach supporting water quality improvement in the Wet Tropics of Australia and beyond.
Highlights
The Wet Tropics region stretches approximately 500 km along the north-eastern coast of Queensland and forms a belt approximately 50 km wide (Figure 1)
Workshops and interviews with the wide range of Tully Basin stakeholders showed that community perceptions of basin water quality conditions differed between stakeholder groups, but despite differences in stakeholder perceptions, all groups agreed that additional water quality monitoring was needed for the Tully Basin to better characterise current water quality conditions and assist in refining water quality objectives [18]
This research fills an important gap by providing an advanced conceptual framework that was tested in the Tully basin
Summary
The Wet Tropics region stretches approximately 500 km along the north-eastern coast of Queensland and forms a belt approximately 50 km wide (Figure 1). Water quality degradation, contested uses and values of resources, climate change and urban growth put significant pressures on the protection, management and conservation of the Wet Tropics. Government is to help local communities rehabilitate and better protect coastal basins and critical aquatic habitats in the WHAs of the Wet Tropics and the GBR [3,4]. The Tully basin in the Wet Tropics has been identified as one of the top ten pollution hot spots in the GBR lagoon [3,5]. Issues identified include in-stream water quality degradation in freshwater reaches from runoff from pesticides, nutrients and sediments leaving agricultural, and industrial and urban lands. I.; Smith, D.M. Planning future landscapes in the Wet Tropics of Australia: A social-ecological framework. N.R.M. Wet Tropics Water Quality Improvement Plan: 2015–2020.
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