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Quantifying the ecosystem services of the Great Southern Reef (NESP MaC 1.9)

Ecosystems provide numerous services and benefits to society. While historically overlooked, these services are increasingly recognized and are now being mapped and accounted for. There are several approaches to mapping and evaluating these ecosystem services. In this report, we use two increasingly common approaches, Ocean Accounting and Welfare Economics, to evaluate ecosystem services for the Great Southern Reef.

The Great Southern Reef is a network of rocky reefs dominated by temperate algal forests known as kelp. It spans over 8,000 Km of coastline and supports two thirds of the Australian population. Despite its presumed importance, there has been little work quantifying the extent and value of the ecosystem services provided by the Great Southern Reef.

Through a systematic review we assessed the current state of knowledge of the ecosystem services provided by the Great Southern Reef. Using the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) framework, we created an overview of the ecosystem services (provisioning, regulating, and cultural) provided by the Great Southern Reef in New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and Western Australia. We then created metrics to quantify how these services benefit coastal societies in these five states.

Highlight summaries include over 17 million Australians who live within 50 Km of the reef, 26 wild seaweed harvest companies, 115 tourism SCUBA operators, 1436 mapped dive sites, 18 million tourist visits each year, 16 temperate marine biology university programs, 43 books and films, key medical products, 23 tons of harvested seaweed, 1116 grams of carbon per m2 used for growth each year, 2,361 peer-reviewed scientific publications from 1976 to 2022, 186 marine protected areas, 2.16 million recreational fishers, and over 28 commercial fisheries with 20,000 tons of biomass taken each year.

We then conducted economic evaluations using these biophysical values and the available information. Using a variety of approaches, we found that the total economic value of the Great Southern Reef was $11.56 billion each year. Individually the values were as follows, commercial fishing (producer surplus - $33.2 million), carbon sequestration (avoided damages - $37.8 million), nutrient cycling (avoided damages - $6,484 million), recreational fishing (consumer surplus - $1,668 million), diving and snorkelling (consumer surplus - $403 million), other recreational activities (consumer surplus $1,836 million), and the existence value (consumer surplus - $1,096 million).

Simple

Identification info

Date (Creation)
2022-05-18

Point of contact

School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences (BEES), The University of New South Wales (UNSW) - Eger, Aaron
The University of New South Wales
UNSW Sydney
New South Wales
2052
Australia
ORCID ID >

Principal investigator

School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences (BEES), The University of New South Wales (UNSW) - Verges, Adriana
The University of New South Wales
UNSW Sydney
New South Wales
2052
Australia
Status
complete

Point of contact

School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences (BEES), The University of New South Wales (UNSW) - Eger, Aaron
The University of New South Wales
UNSW Sydney
New South Wales
2052
Australia
ORCID ID >

Principal investigator

School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences (BEES), The University of New South Wales (UNSW) - Verges, Adriana
The University of New South Wales
UNSW Sydney
New South Wales
2052
Australia
Temporal resolution
P0Y0M7DT0H0M0S
Topic category
  • Oceans
N
S
E
W


Temporal extent

Time period
2021-11-01 2022-04-30

Vertical element

Vertical element

Minimum value
0
Maximum value
50
Identifier
EPSG:5715
Name
MSL depth
Maintenance and update frequency
none-planned

Resource format

Date
NASA/GCMD Keywords, Version 8.5
  • EARTH SCIENCE | BIOSPHERE | ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS | ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONS
  • EARTH SCIENCE | BIOSPHERE | ECOSYSTEMS | MARINE ECOSYSTEMS | COASTAL | KELP FOREST
  • EARTH SCIENCE | AGRICULTURE | AGRICULTURAL AQUATIC SCIENCES | FISHERIES
  • EARTH SCIENCE | BIOSPHERE | ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS | ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONS | NUTRIENT CYCLING
  • EARTH SCIENCE | HUMAN DIMENSIONS | SOCIAL BEHAVIOR | RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES/AREAS
  • EARTH SCIENCE | HUMAN DIMENSIONS | INFRASTRUCTURE | CULTURAL FEATURES
  • EARTH SCIENCE SERVICES | MODELS | CARBON CYCLE/CARBON BUDGET MODELS
  • EARTH SCIENCE | BIOSPHERE | ECOSYSTEMS | MARINE ECOSYSTEMS

Resource constraints

Other constraints
This dataset is hosted by the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), University of Tasmania, on behalf of the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and NESP Marine and Coastal Hub Project 1.9.

Resource constraints

Classification
Unclassified

Resource constraints

Use limitation
Data was sourced from the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub – the Marine and Coastal Hub is supported through funding from the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Program (NESP), administered by the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (DAWE).

Resource constraints

Linkage
http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/4.0/88x31.png

License Graphic

Title
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License


>

Website
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

License Text

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8

Content Information

Content type
Physical measurement

Distribution Information

Distribution format
  • Microsoft Excel

OnLine resource
DATA ACCESS - collated data appendix [.xlsx direct download]

Resource lineage

Statement
Data were collected from a series of literature reviews.
Hierarchy level
Dataset

mdb:MD_Metadata

Metadata identifier
5694419d-5ddf-44f9-99f8-e6b68b1e6a28

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8

Point of contact

Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), University of Tasmania (UTAS) - Emma Flukes (NESP Marine and Coastal Hub Data Manager (Southern node))
Parent metadata
  • NESP MaC Project 1.9 - Quantifying the ecosystem services of the Great Southern Reef

Type of resource

Resource scope
Dataset
Metadata linkage
https://metadata.imas.utas.edu.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/5694419d-5ddf-44f9-99f8-e6b68b1e6a28

Point of truth URL of this metadata record

Date info (Creation)
2015-05-06T11:44:25
Date info (Revision)
2015-05-06T11:44:25

Metadata standard

Title
ISO 19115-3:2018
 
 

Overviews

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W


Keywords

NASA/GCMD Keywords, Version 8.5
EARTH SCIENCE SERVICES | MODELS | CARBON CYCLE/CARBON BUDGET MODELS EARTH SCIENCE | AGRICULTURE | AGRICULTURAL AQUATIC SCIENCES | FISHERIES EARTH SCIENCE | BIOSPHERE | ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS | ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONS EARTH SCIENCE | BIOSPHERE | ECOLOGICAL DYNAMICS | ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONS | NUTRIENT CYCLING EARTH SCIENCE | BIOSPHERE | ECOSYSTEMS | MARINE ECOSYSTEMS EARTH SCIENCE | BIOSPHERE | ECOSYSTEMS | MARINE ECOSYSTEMS | COASTAL | KELP FOREST EARTH SCIENCE | HUMAN DIMENSIONS | INFRASTRUCTURE | CULTURAL FEATURES EARTH SCIENCE | HUMAN DIMENSIONS | SOCIAL BEHAVIOR | RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES/AREAS

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Access to the portal
Read here the full details and access to the data.

Associated resources

Not available


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