vulnerability

A recent report prepared by the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE-CRC) provides a general overview of the state of government coastal planning responses to the chal

Reef Rescue is a key component of Caring for our Country, the Australian Government’s $2 billion initiative to restore the health of Australia’s environment and improve land management practices. It represents a coordinated approach to environmental management in Australia that is built on transparent and consistent national targets.

Having locals identify environmental research needs for their own community is a key step to ensuring that research is relevant, appropriate and desirable for communities.

Dr. Anthony is Program Leader: Healthy and Resilient Great Barrier Reef at AIMS. His key interest is in understanding coral reef ecosystem resilience under climate and ocean change. Ken started his career in 1995 when he pursued a PhD at JCU in coral reef biology. He then evolved from a physiologist to a broad systems ecologist seeing problems through two lenses: marine science and environmental management.

Through participatory scenario planning with Torres Strait and Papua New Guinean communities and stakeholders, informed by integrated ecosystem and climate modelling, this project aims to explore potential future scenarios for the region, and identify ‘best bet’ strategies to protect livelihoods and achieve sustainable economic development. This will respond in part to the 2010 Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee Inquiry, which recommended an analysis of the vulnerability of the Torres Strait to climate change and other future pressures.

Understanding temporal and spatial patterns of vulnerability under environmental impacts and change is central to the management of marine parks. Quantitative assessments of vulnerability, however, are one of the greatest challenges for management planning of coral reef ecosystems, including the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). One reason is the lack of a functional operational framework that can link environmental factors to vulnerability via physical, biological and ecological processes and their interactions.

This project proposes to provide information and tools to enable scientists and management agencies to predict and limit the impacts of extreme climatic events on Australia’s biodiversity.  It aims to determine the exposure, sensitivity and vulnerability of Wet Tropics biodiversity to climatic extremes, and assess contemporary and future impacts.

This project will provide detailed mapping of present and future biodiversity patterns and drivers, environmental and evolutionary refugia and a comprehensive assessment of the vulnerability and resilience of rainforest biodiversity in Australian tropical forests. The project team will use a combination of available knowledge, existing datasets and strategic research to inform adaptive strategies for promoting persistence of biodiversity.

Program 7 will have three projects addressing different threats to rainforest health. A generalised analytical toolkit will be developed for assessing vulnerability to extreme climatic events, particularly the sensitivity of Wet Tropics fauna to temperature extremes. The role of fire as a driver of rainforest distribution (particularly on the threatened ecosystem of the Mabi forest) will be determined.

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