Communicating progress towards the Reef targets

Key targets have been set to protect the Great Barrier Reef  

The Reef 2050 Water Quality Improvement Plan sets water quality, land and catchment management targets for the Reef catchments.  

Together, the Queensland and Australian governments have committed close to $1.8B to improve water quality flowing into the Great Barrier Reef.  

There is an extensive data collection and water quality modelling exercise conducted by the Paddock to Reef program, including many supporting organisations, to quantify progress towards the range of targets.  

The underlying reporting program tracks the progress of many indicators across a range of spatial scales to ultimately require presentation of over 800 different measures. Rarely does a publicly funded investment program, with so many contributing organisations, have such a clear and consistent reporting approach. 

In addition to the reported metrics, there is a need to convey contextual information such as weather-related impacts or supporting science and methods. 

Communicating progress towards the targets in an engaging, transparent and flexible way 

Truii delivers a web-based interactive Reef Water Quality Report Card to assess progress towards the Reef targets, as well as the current condition of wetlands and the inshore marine zone.  

The Report Card’s design uses a progressive disclosure approach, whereby high-level information is presented to all users initially and users who want more detail can drill down to explore individual indicators, locations, underlying data and supporting contextual information. 

A key feature of the Reef Water Quality Report Card that is not visible to the public, is its custom-designed underlying content management system. Organisations that contribute to the Report Card needed a way to manage their data and content in a standardised format and configure how indicators are reported.  

The Report Card’s content management system also allows contributing organisations to transparently track the extensive review and approval processes by scientific and governance groups that ensure the Report Card’s robustness.   

The Reef Water Quality Report Card has been used by the Queensland and Australian governments since the 2017 and 2018 Report Card and won the 2020 Queensland Premier’s Award for Excellence for Protecting the Great Barrier Reef.