Present and Future Activities on the North West Shelf Susan Wijffels | Dynamic Ocean Theme Leader For the WfO team Wealth from oceans national research flagship

Summary CSIRO is working in the Northwest across a broad range of areas Oceans and climate from decadal through daily processes Biogeochemical and carbon cycling Ecosystem characterisation, function, dynamics and biodiversity including human impacts Future Would like to see more synthesis across disciplines Data scarcity remains a huge challenge Target development of modelling/prediction systems initially based on those deployed in other regions (BlueLink/eReefs) but tailored for this unique region Improved ocean information systems and services for government, public and industry

Large-Scale Modes of Atmosphere-Ocean Variability Indonesian Throughflow Decadal Variability Monsoons Intraseasonal Variability El Niño – Southern Oscillation Indian Ocean Dipole Biogeochemical Cycling Southern Annular Mode

Mean Flow Field

On interannual time scales – remote winds control the ocean structure in this region

To manage these regions we need to know the large-scale influences (plus regional information, e.g. continental shelf processes):

International INSTANT Project Australia,USA,France,Indonesia,Netherlands

Indonesian Throughflow Flow variability with depth Surface layers and deep layers are decoupled and forced differently

Ocean response to Tropical Cyclones CSIRO’s fully non-linear, 3-D hydrodynamic model, SHOC, is used to study the ocean response to Tropical Cyclones on the NWS Surface currents and temperature response to Tropical Cyclone Bobby is shown This ppt slide has a file the movie is played from. The .AVI file has to be in the same folder as the power point presentation. Minimum text given, Madeleine happy to give more info if needed The movie should be set to loop until stopped.   Madeleine Cahill and Peter Craig,CSIRO For Woodside

IMOS Indonesian Though Flow shelf array: IMOS/AIMS/CSIRO The 4 shelf mooring of ITF, 2 more go in the Timor Trough and 1 in Ombai Strait north of Timor Leste. Deployed June 2010

FRDC – management implication of climate change on fisheries in Western Australia WA Department of Fisheries, CSIRO Wealth from Oceans Flagship Objectives Assess future climate change effects on Western Australia marine environments using a suite of IPCC model projections, downscaled to the key shelf regions and the spatial and temporal scales relevant for key fisheries Examine the modeled shelf climate change scenarios on fisheries and implications of historic and future climate change effects Projected changes in winter chlorophyll concentration Downscaling model Climate model A weakened Leeuwin Current and lower eddy energetics in the 2060’s cause WA waters to be less productive

Caring for Our Country Identifying threats to marine biodiversity of the Ningaloo World Heritage Area A collaboration between: CSIRO Status of World Heritage Values: reef fish, sharks, turtles Movement and habitat use of iconic megafauna DEC Status of World Heritage Values: reef fish DoF Distribution and intensity of fishing effort It is funded by the Commonwealth through the Caring for Our Country program It is a collaboration between CSIRO and the state departments DEC (Department of Environment and Conservation) and DoF (Department of Fisheries). Broadly, the project aims to assess the condition of some of the key World Heritage Values (reef fish, sharks and turtles) and also assess some of the threats to these values.  

Pilbara Marine Conservation Partnership Goals Regional scale assessment of condition and threats to biodiversity; coral reef health, benthos, fish and sharks, 2012-2017. Better understand variations in coral reef health and resilience in context of key environmental drivers; habitat/biodiversity, oceanographic connectivity, climate change, fishing pressure, nutrient supply, cyclones Enhance net conservation benefits to globally significant coral reef systems, detect medium and long term trends. Project commenced late 2012, first tasks to map biodiversity and connectivity now being conducted by CSIRO Ok this is the single slide for the so-called NCB project. I say that because Chevron don’t want us to call it the Gorgon NCB program, Gorgon is their project and its probably better to call it the Pilbara Marine conservation partnership anyway since it makes it clearer that we are at arms length from industry and all funds come thru government with ‘no strings attached’. Its kind of difficult to fit into one slide but the goal of the program is to conduct studies of ecosystem dynamics on coral reefs in this region in order to understand how they respond to environmental drivers such as those mentioned above. Rather than arbitrarily pick these reefs we are going to study reefs that represent areas subjected to different levels of stress and disturbance and also stratify these by level of larval connectivity and biodiversity zone. Thus we are doing the regional scale biodiversity characterization and connectivity first, then beginning the reef studies. The program will form part of long-term ecological monitoring networks in the state that provide feedback on management to DEC WA fisheries, and potentially others. The NCB funding program is supposed to run for 30+ years, so we are hoping to prove how useful our approach can be and build this into a long-term series of observations. The biodiversity sampling slide on the left is a representation of the way that environmental layers are used to classify environments. This is combined with known biodiversity information to produce a map that estimates how well we understand biodiversity across the region. Areas with lots of uncertainty are then prioritised for the sampling program. This method has been applied to Australia’s east coast from Torres Strait to the southern limit of the GBR. Ming will speak to the connectivity modelling work as part of the symposium. He is using a ROMS model Systematic biodiversity sampling Connectivity modelling

CSIRO CARBON CLUSTER ACTIVITIES Objectives carbon inventory information on sources, speciation, stocks and flows process understanding of changes in carbon cycling resulting from natural and anthropogenic change Activities Carbon sequestration, stoichiometry and stores potential of representative Australian coastal ecosystems Benthic community metabolism and benthic-pelagic coupling Pelagic community metabolism in Australian coastal waters Scaling up to regional inventories and data assimilation and Parameter and Model Uncertainties Evaluate organic and inorganic carbon stocks, nutrient stoichiometry, characterise isotopic C signatures and derive rates of accumulation in seagrass meadows, mangrove forests and salt-marshes through synthesis of existing data and data collected in expeditions. Estimate atmospheric exchange at representative sites. used to underpin assessment of sequestration potential, ecosystem status and vulnerability.

Activities in NW Oceans Institute through Carlos will have a focus in NW on carbon sequestration in seagrass, mangroves and sediment Some work on pelagic C subject to Southern Surveyor cruise being approved (P. Thompson) CC would like access to carbon relevant data collected under WAMSI and other projects CSIRO activities will be principally around the development of better models, assimilation and scaling methods, and economic assessment

NW shelf Management Strategies revisited Previous large scale effects of fish trawling project (Sainsbury 1987,88) CSIRO-WA Fisheries proposal “Recovery after trawling: Resurveying the North West Shelf after 25 years of sustainable trawling” Different spatial fishing zoning systems Natural experiment to determine impacts and recovery Original work: Sainsbury, K. J. (1988) The ecological basis of multispecies fisheries, and management of a demersal fishery in tropical Australia. in Fish Population Dynamics (2nd edition), pp 349-382. J. A. Gulland (ed). John Wiley and Sons, Lond. Sainsbury, K.J. (1987) Assessment and Management of the demersal fishery on the continental shelf of north-western Australia. pp 465-503 in J. J. Polovina and S.R. Ralston (eds) Tropical Snappers and Groupers: Biology and Fisheries Management. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado. The principal objective of the North West Shelf Joint Environmental Management Study was to develop and demonstrate practical and science-based methods that support integrated regional planning and management of marine ecosystems to achieve ecologically sustainable development. Proposal not successful, but still of interest for both parties but with a broader MMU view Source: WA Fisheries

Summary CSIRO is working in the Northwest across a broad range of areas Oceans and climate from decadal through daily processes Biogeochemical and carbon cycling Ecosystem characterisation, function, dynamics and biodiversity Future Would like to see more synthesis across disciplines Data scarcity remains a huge challenge Target tailored modelling/prediction systems initially based on those deployed in other regions (BlueLink/eReefs) Improved ocean information systems and services for government, public and industry

eReefs The key R&D partners -BoM, CSIRO AIMS Goal is to build 1. A framework to explore and predict the impact of multiple factors such as climate change (ocean temperature and pH) and water quality (nutrients, chlorophyll, turbidity) 2. An interactive, visual picture of the reef and its component parts, accessible to all.

What would it take to start building a similar framework/tool for the NWS?

Thank you Contributors: Andy Steven, Russ Babcock, Matt VanderKlift, Peter Thompson, Ming Feng, Andreas Schiller, Wealth from Oceans Susan Wijffels Theme Leader The Dynamic Ocean Susan.Wijffels@csiro.au Wealth from oceans national research flagship

Integrated Project 2: the basics Hydrodynamic and biogeochemical modeling using fully coupled models Quantification of benthic and pelagic productivity Sources of nutrients and the importance of benthic/pelagic coupling Ecological connectivity Catchment-ocean interactions – Regions of freshwater Influence Climate impacts Trophodynamic interactions Transport and fate of nutrients and other potential contaminants from dredging and oil spills Presentation title | Presenter name