This record provides an overview of the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub small-scale study - "A national framework for improving seagrass restoration". For specific data outputs from this project, please see child records associated with this metadata.

--------------------

Seagrasses provide resources and ecosystem services critical to the health of coastal ecosystems and human populations. They increase water clarity, stabilise sediments and reduce coastal erosion, sequester carbon, and provide habitat and food to marine animals, including commercially important fish and invertebrates.

Across Australia, the loss of >275,000 ha of seagrass meadows and associated ecosystem services – valued at AU$ 5.3 billion – has contributed to the long-term degradation of estuarine and coastal marine ecosystems. Restoration of seagrass is critical for improving the health and function of these ecosystems and sustaining coastal communities and industries that depend on them. This is primarily because restoration practices are piecemeal and driven by local drivers and are generally not conducted at scales of seagrass loss.

This project addressed this problem by bringing together scientists and key stakeholders to collate knowledge on seagrass ecology and restoration and generated a framework to scaling-up restoration nationally. It also build on ongoing restoration trials to test the proposed framework: assessing sediment quality and manipulations (Gamay Rangers, UNSW); use of sediment filled hessian tubes for seed and seedling capture (Malgana Rangers, UWA), and: scaling up seed collection for seed-based restoration (Seeds for Snapper, OZFISH, UWA).

Outputs

• Effect of sediment quality and manipulation on seagrass transplant success [field data]

• Locations and health of beachcast fragments of Posidonia in Botany Bay [field data]

• Effect of engineering hydrodynamics (by use of hessian socks) on seagrass transplant success [field data]

• Final project report [written]