Predicting water quality in the Great Barrier Reef Catchments: Learning from long-term water quality monitoring data

Abstract

Riverine water quality deterioration has become a global issue, affecting freshwater and near-shore marine ecosystems. To protect aquatic environmental health in these systems, effective water quality management strategies are critically important. Riverine water quality needs to be evaluated and managed at the catchment scale. Management decisions can be greatly supported and informed by understanding of: (1) the processes influencing water quality constituent concentrations; and (2) the key factors affecting these processes and by predictive capability. As such, catchment water quality modelling tools are important to gain this knowledge and predict water quality dynamics under different c..