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Artificial Reefs: Suitability of recycled materials for integration into purpose built artificial reefs for enhancing marine productivity, biodiversity and social outcomes

Project number: 2021-055
Project Status:
Current
Budget expenditure: $280,505.20
Principal Investigator: Andrew Rowland
Organisation: Recfishwest
Project start/end date: 14 Jun 2022 - 14 Feb 2024
Contact:
FRDC
TAGS
Rac Wa
Habitat

Need

Traditionally, reef projects around Australia have been funded by public money through government agencies, in particular regional development, research or fisheries grants. More recently in WA, new reefs such as Exmouth’s King Reef, have been brought to life through funding partnerships between government, not for profit & other private/industry sectors. Creating new pathways & processes to unlock & utilise alternative materials to create habitat enhancement structures is critical in ensuring the benefits artificial reefs create for our oceans & communities are maximised. Integrating appropriate recycled materials into reef developments provides opportunities from a scalability & financially sustainable perspective for all sectors of the Australian seafood industry, paving the way for more reefs to be deployed for social, economic and environmental benefit.

Playing a leading role in artificial reef development, Recfishwest often receives offers of materials for new reef projects. Examples include concrete in the form of railway sleepers, roadway culverts & bridge beams or steel in the form of storage tanks, structural frameworks & pipelines. Understanding what structures are suitable & acceptable for repurposing into reefs needs to be determined before these opportunities (current & future) are lost. This will unlock new reef options with alternative partners & funders to build more productive marine habitats for the benefit of local communities & the environment. This project is an extension to the previously FRDC funded habitat enhancement project: https://www.frdc.com.au/Archived-Reports/FRDC%20Projects/2014-005-DLD.pdf

Current Commonwealth & State legislation & policies limit the exploration of new reefing opportunities and there is a need to support change within these regulatory agencies.

We regularly consult with stakeholders who also have a need to understand the outcomes of this project including: DPIRD, NERA, WAFIC, NOPSEMA, DAWE, other Regulators, Resources Sector (including operators), Research agencies and the WA fishing community as end users. NERA and DAWE have also provided Letters of Support for this project as critical project partners to help achieve the outcomes and desired benefits.

Objectives

1. Explore existing literature on structures and materials that have been successfully repurposed into artificial reefs globally
2. Create a framework to assess the habitat and fishing suitability of structures for use in artificial reef projects
3. Create a guidelines and a substantial list of structures available for potential use in integrated artificial reefs from multiple industries
4. Develop a pathway with targeted regulators to assist in the development of a better regulatory environment that supports science-based habitat enhancement projects
People
Adoption
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Impacts of COVID19 on the Australian Seafood Industry: Extending the assessment to prepare for uncertain futures

Project number: 2021-042
Project Status:
Current
Budget expenditure: $179,564.00
Principal Investigator: Emily Ogier
Organisation: Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) Hobart
Project start/end date: 20 Dec 2021 - 14 Mar 2024
Contact:
FRDC
TAGS
Supply Chain
Human Dimensions Research
Economic
Data
Consumer

Need

In March 2021 the FRDC published an initial rapid assessment - Impacts of COVID19 on the Australian Seafood Industry: January-June 2020 - of the direct and indirect effects of disruption to seafood production, supply chains and markets caused by the global COVID19 pandemic. That assessment covered the initial period of the shocks wrought by COVID19 and demonstrated the availability of data to support rapid assessment in such conditions.

However gaps remain to be addressed, including:
1. comprehensive coverage of production effects in fishing and aquaculture across all Australian jurisdictions,
2. coverage of impacts on recreational fishing activity and Indigenous commercial seafood activities;
3. assessment of emerging medium-term impacts (such as changes in Australian consumer purchasing behaviours, structural effects in labour markets and export-oriented sectors, effects of alterations in tourism patterns); and the interactions with non-CV-19 impacts (such as trade tensions affecting exports); and
4. the effectiveness of crisis responses.
Furthermore, the capacity to access data to support rapid assessment in times of systemic shock needs to be consolidated. Finally, insights from rapid assessments need to be harvested to provide Australia with a framework for assessment of systemic (i.e. large-scale, multi-level) risk to the Australian seafood community.

This project addresses these needs through a follow-up Impact assessment report which is more comprehensive, given data availability. The follow up report will include case studies of crisis responses by key government and industry decision makers, and the lessons learned for preparedness for future shocks. It will develop a Guideline for rapid assessment of economic and social effects in fisheries and aquaculture, which will contribute to FRDC's capacity for rapid appraisal and assessments. The guideline will include quality assurance steps to be applied to rapid assessments. Finally, the project proposes to draw insights from this more comprehensive assessment to identify what risk factors to assess, and how, in order to prepare for systemic shocks in future.

Objectives

1. Complete assessment of impact of COVID-19 on Australia's commercial, recreational and charter fisheries and aquaculture sectors for the period July 2020 to June 2021
2. Determine what were effective responses and interventions using selected case studies to inform preparedness for future shocks
3. Document all data streams and their source (organisation, private data, public domain data) - STOP / GO MILESTONE
4. Develop guidelines for data production, governance and use when rapid situational assessments are required.
5. Develop a framework for systematic risk assessment
6. Develop 'data architecture' for a portal to access live/near-real time data to support early detection and risk assessment of large-scale shocks (architecture to include: data sources, access and permissions
display
outputs)
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