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Protecting the Great Barrier Reef with data-driven web applications

Summary

Since 2018, Truii has been working with its partners in the Queensland and Australian governments to support water quality improvement programs aimed at reducing pollution flowing to the Great Barrier Reef.

Truii has developed five key web applications that support investment planning, project design, reporting and communication of outputs and outcomes:

Reefonomics to help prioritise where to focus investment
P2R Projector to support project design and reporting
Paddock to Reef Data Portal to support information sharing
Reef Investor to allow investors to have insight into the outcomes of their funding programs
Reef Water Quality Report Card to communicate progress toward targets to the public

5 min read

Author: Nick Marsh

Implementing, assessing and reporting water quality improvement to the Reef is a massive undertaking

The Queensland and Australian governments deliver water quality improvement programs to reduce pollution from water entering the Great Barrier Reef. Investment from these programs is spread across an area three times the size of Victoria. These are huge and sophisticated programs, working with more than 60 project delivery organisations to deliver cost effective water quality improvements focussed on achieving the Reef 2050 Water Quality Improvement Plan targets.

Some key challenges of the water quality improvement programs include:

What to do and where to do it to achieve the most cost-effective investment?
How to influence consistent project design approaches?
How to quantify potential outcomes on a project-by-project basis?
How can investors have insight into the progress of programs and likely outcomes achieved?
How to collate all the ongoing work to inform Queensland’s water quality modelling team?
How to communicate the collective work and outcomes to the public?
How to share technical information with the tens of organisations that support the program?

Truii has created numerous tools to support efforts to save the Reef

None of the challenges outlined above are definitively solved; there is an ongoing process of refinement. We are, however, proud of the work we have collectively achieved with the Queensland and Australian government teams.

Figure 1 outlines the web applications that Truii has developed (numbered), where they sit in relation to (grey boxes) and how they flow into (orange arrows) the considerable work performed by the Queensland Government’s water quality modelling team (blue box). Descriptions of the tools created by Truii follow.

Figure 1: Truii’s primary work in the Great Barrier Reef and connections to the Queensland Government’s water quality modelling.

Reefonomics
Region-scale investment prioritisation and planning tool that couples environmental and economic modelling to support decision-making around what work to do and where to deliver the best outcomes for the Reef.

P2R Projector
Farm-scale agricultural improvement project design and capture tool that predicts the water quality outcomes of undertaking alternative practices or remediation. P2R Projector covers on-ground projects in the sugarcane, banana, cropping, and grazing industries, as well as gully and stream remediation projects.

Pesticide Projector
A tool to support farmers, and the agronomists who advise them, in exploring the risks posed to the aquatic environment by different pesticide active ingredients and to identify alternatives that pose less risk.

Reef Investor
An interactive dashboard to provide investors in on-ground water quality improvement programs (Queensland and Australian government) with insight into how much has been invested, by who, in what projects, and where, and estimates the water quality outcomes.

Paddock to Reef Data Portal
A web-based portal for sharing data, as well as for making and managing data requests.

Reef Water Quality Report Card
A highly visual and public, interactive report card where all the above information comes together to assess what has been done and the progress that is being made towards the Reef 2050 Water Quality Improvement Plan targets.

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