Diuron Pesticide Dispersal Model For Great Barrier Reef

A 1 km resolution marine model simulates the dispersal of the pesticide diuron across the Great Barrier Reef from January 2016 to July 2018. The eReefs GBR1 model, developed by the Australian Ocean Data Network, quantifies loads from 16 rivers using hydrodynamic and transport models. It incorporates a determined half-life of diuron in marine waters of 40 days.

Use Cases

• Analyze diuron concentration fluctuations hourly in each 1 km model grid cell based on hydrodynamic inputs.
• Compare simulated diuron distributions against observations from 11 monitoring sites to validate model accuracy.
• Track the dispersal of unique conservative tracers from individual rivers, such as the Murray or Proserpine, to quantify plume contributions.
• Model the impact of surface flux loads from high-risk rivers like the Burrum and Plane on coastal water quality.
• Assess diuron half-life of 40 days in marine waters under varying hydrodynamic conditions calculated on a 1.2-second barotropic time step.

Strengths

• High-resolution 1 km spatial model nested inside a 4 km model for stable boundary forcing.
• Simulation covers a 30-month period from January 2016 to July 2018.
• Model incorporates freshwater input from 16 specific Great Barrier Reef rivers.

Limitations

• Data format is limited to PNG and HTML, not a standard structured data format like CSV or NetCDF.
• Diuron input is restricted to catchment sources, with ocean boundaries set to 0, potentially simplifying open-ocean interactions.
• Several river catchments (e.g., Normanby, Fitzroy) contain no diuron loads, limiting spatial analysis in those regions.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network via data.gov.au.

Collection Method

Modelled using the eReefs GBR1 hydrodynamic and transport model (version GBR1_H2p0_Cq3pe1_Dhnd), forced by catchment outputs from the GBR-Dynamic SedNet model.

Time Range

January 2016 to July 2018.

Freshness

Last updated April 2026.

Geography

Great Barrier Reef marine environment.