Paddock to Reef Integrated Monitoring,

Modelling and Reporting

Dr John Armour Principal Scientist

Presentation to Chinese delegation, South Johnstone, 25/2/2011

Monitoring and modelling from paddock to marine ecosystem scale.

Bainbridge et al. 2009

Monitoring at sub-catchment & end-of-catchment scale

Monitoring at paddock

scale

Resource condition (pollutant load)

Target

Coastline

reef

Great Barrier Reef

lagoon Marine

monitoring & modelling program

Modelling at catchment scale

Monitoring and modelling from paddock to marine ecosystem scale.

Bainbridge et al. 2009

Coastline

reef

Great Barrier Reef

lagoon

Modelling at catchment scale

Dr Gill McCloskey

Dr Richard Hunt

Scope Reef Monitoring & Modelling

Cropping

Grazing

Bananas Cane

Horticulture

Wet Tropics

Innisfail

Cairns

N

Great Barrier Reef

Intensive cropping in wet tropics

sugarcane bananas

Cairns

Water balance in well drained soil

3,100 mm

Runoff 300 mm (10%)

Evap-trans 1,150 mm

(37%)

Prove and Moody 1997

Leached 1,850 mm (40-60%)

1m below soil surface

Lysimeter Water Trap

Water tower (regulates vacuum)

Control panel

Vacuum applied Sub-surface water

Paddock scale monitoring - What is the effect of management?

•  On surface & sub-surface water quality (sediment, nutrient, pesticides) at paddock scale?

•  On crop yield and profitability?

Science consortium of Terrain, DERM, DEEDI, ACTFR, BSES

•  Tully cane sites located on DPI’s Demonstration Farm sites (instrumentation established)

•  Banana sites established with DPI Crop uniformity trials (instrumentation almost established)

Field instruments

• refrigerated sampler • batteries • electronic controllers • data loggers • solar panels

• flume to monitor water flow • sampling point

Lysimeter system to capture drainage

Field instruments

Sugarcane site

Data collected

•  Soil samples nutrient & pesticide studies •  Water quality in surface runoff •  Water quality in deep drainage

Conclusion

•  Current wet season has been well sampled

•  Analytical results recently available