Mapping outflow events

They carry a range of substances that can have positive or negative impacts on marine systems and fisheries, such as carbon and other food that supports biodiversity, or excessive nutrients, sediment, fertilisers and pollution that can be harmful.

What is in coastal outflow?

Coastal outflows carry two main types of things that can have an impact on marine ecosystems and fisheries:

• Nutrients, carbon and other food can have a positive impact.
• Sediment, fertilisers and pollution can have a negative impact.

What are coastal overflows?

Coastal outflows are the plumes of fresh water that flow from rivers into the sea.

They carry a range of substances that can have positive or negative impacts on marine systems and fisheries, such as carbon and other food that supports biodiversity, or excessive nutrients, sediment, fertilisers and pollution that can be harmful.

Why do we want to measure coastal outflows?

Measuring coastal outflows will help scientists understand the positive and negative impacts of outflows.

How do we measure coastal outflows?

Coastal scientists from the Department of Planning and Environment (DPE) and Griffith University are reviewing other studies to identify gaps in our current knowledge as well as develop a model of coastal outflows. The model will help other people understand the impact of coastal outflows.

Scientists are also collaborating with CSIRO. They are using satellite images of the coast from the past twenty years to look at three features of outflows:

• Size (how big they were)
• Frequency (how often they happened)
• Distribution (where they happened).

What can we do with what we learn?