SUSTAINING COASTAL & MARINE ZONES

Sustaining Coastal & Marine Zones Climate change, protecting coastal and marine habitats and resource security.

Challenge Leader SENIOR PROFESSOR SHARON ROBINSON

This year a number of reports have highlighted threats to our coastal and marine zones as a result of climate change and plastic pollution. We all must recognise that the coming decade has to be the defining decade where we take urgent action to address this climate crisis.

In September the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a special report on ‘The Oceans and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate’.

The report showed that communities living close to the coast (Goal 11), including much of Australia and our Pacific neighbors on small islands, are particularly exposed to ocean and cryosphere change, including sea level rise, extreme sea levels and loss of ice.

The report confirms that human induced climate change is melting glaciers and ice sheets at an accelerating rate, with global mean sea level rising at more than double the rate seen through most of the last century, at 3.5 millimeters per year.

The Climate Council’s report ‘This is what climate change looks like’ showed that we are already seeing the effects of climate change around Australia’s coasts; including the first record of a mammalian extinction (the native rodent Bramble Cay melomys). We have also seen mangrove deaths in the Gulf, coral bleaching, and seagrass bed and kelp forest losses (Goal 14), as well as dieback of sub-Antarctic island and Antarctic coastal plant communities (Goal 15).

Many of our current projects, including Blue Futures, Blue Carbon, Mapping the Islands and ECOAntarctica are working towards solutions to overcome the challenges posed by the changes to our environment that are occurring as a result of climate change.

As 2019 ends with NSW coastal communities bathed in bushfire smoke, due to drought and climate extremes, we all must recognise that the coming decade has to be the defining decade where we take urgent action to address this climate crisis (Goal 13).

We also need to appreciate that these are global challenges that require researchers from all disciplines to work together to find solutions for a sustainable planet. In 2019 we are excited to welcome Diana King and Georgia Watson to the team as SCMZ Research Officers.

BLUE FUTURES

This year, the Blue Futures project was awarded Keystone funding to position the NSW South Coast as a national leader in the development of blue economies.

Twenty members of the Blue Economies team from across five UOW faculties came together in May for a Blue Economy Workshop, in which broad research agendas, questions and methodologies were established.

Ahead of World Oceans Day on June 8, the research team, headed by Dr Michelle Voyer, launched an online interactive story map to introduce the public to the concept of a blue economy, in turn inviting the local community to contribute to a vision for a “blue future” for the South Coast and Illawarra.

“The research will be important for the NSW South Coast, especially in the context of the recent bushfires and their impact on the environment, industry and tourism,” said Dr Voyer.

Arts Business Economics Engineering Environmental science Financial accounting History Marine science Social sciences

The ECO (Environment, Community, Outreach) Antarctica project has established a new trans-Tasman network of Antarctic researchers with a wide range of expertise.

These include marine and terrestrial ecologists, data scientists, environmental toxicologists, climate scientists and modellers, and experts in Antarctic and environmental law and policy.

A trans-Tasman network conference was held in August, with attendees from New Zealand and Hobart, working towards informing and standardising methodologies across all nations conducting research in Antarctica.

The project has also implemented a series of public events dedicated to deriving key research questions for implementation over the next decade to help protect the icy continent. This included an exhibition, Antarctic Footprints, showcasing the wonder and science of Antarctica over the past 100 years, from the perspective of our Antarctica researchers. The Mapping the Islands project uses an art-science collaboration to communicate climate change research in ways that engage with people’s values, revealing opportunities for and barriers to environmentally sustainable practice on the Great Barrier Reef.

The project has seen a diverse group of researchers from social sciences, arts and science backgrounds come together to raise awareness about environmental issues plaguing the reef, such as coral bleaching.

The team has released a song and vinyl record as an outcome of their research. Drawings, story-telling and even music have been uniquely utilised alongside “scientific” tasks such as aerial, underwater and landbased mapping surveys, to highlight this environmental issue that truly represents a global challenge.

ECO ANTARCTICA

The ECO (Environment, Community, Outreach) Antarctica project has established a new trans-Tasman network of Antarctic researchers with a wide range of expertise.

These include marine and terrestrial ecologists, data scientists, environmental toxicologists, climate scientists and modellers, and experts in Antarctic and environmental law and policy.

A trans-Tasman network conference was held in August, with attendees from New Zealand and Hobart, working towards informing and standardising methodologies across all nations conducting research in Antarctica.

The project has also implemented a series of public events dedicated to deriving key research questions for implementation over the next decade to help protect the icy continent. This included an exhibition, Antarctic Footprints, showcasing the wonder and science of Antarctica over the past 100 years, from the perspective of our Antarctica researchers.

MAPPING THE ISLANDS

The Mapping the Islands project uses an art-science collaboration to communicate climate change research in ways that engage with people’s values, revealing opportunities for and barriers to environmentally sustainable practice on the Great Barrier Reef.

The project has seen a diverse group of researchers from social sciences, arts and science backgrounds come together to raise awareness about environmental issues plaguing the reef, such as coral bleaching.

The team has released a song and vinyl record as an outcome of their research. Drawings, story-telling and even music have been uniquely utilised alongside “scientific” tasks such as aerial, underwater and landbased mapping surveys, to highlight this environmental issue that truly represents a global challenge.