NESP TWQ Project 5.12 - Scoping land use conversion options for high DIN risk, low-lying s

A 2019-2020 project by the Australian Ocean Data Network and James Cook University scoping land use conversion options for high dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN) risk, low-lying sugarcane areas in the Burdekin and Mackay Whitsunday regions. It aims to identify alternate land uses, quantify economic costs, and explore benefits like farm profitability to meet Great Barrier Reef water quality targets. The project builds on evaluation frameworks from NESP TWQ Project 2.1.2.

Use Cases

• Modeling the economic costs of land use transition based on the project's aim to quantify costs and market mechanisms like Reef Credits.
• Identifying high-risk agricultural areas for intervention based on the focus on coastal low-lying cane land with high DIN loss.
• Assessing farm profitability impacts based on the project's goal to explore the benefits of land transition.
• Comparing land use options across different climatic and industry conditions based on the study of two Natural Resource Management (NRM) regions.

Strengths

• Project is explicitly tied to the Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan and Water Quality Improvement Plan 2017-2022, providing a clear policy context.
• Focuses on two distinct Natural Resource Management (NRM) regions with different climatic conditions and industry groups, allowing for comparative analysis.
• Builds upon existing evaluation frameworks from a prior NESP TWQ project (2.1.2).

Limitations

• Data files are listed as PNG and HTML formats, which likely contain maps and reports rather than structured, machine-readable data tables.
• Column-level documentation and sample data are unavailable, making field semantics and data structure unknown.
• The dataset's last update is listed as 2026-07-10, which is a future date, suggesting potential metadata inaccuracies.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network, likely associated with James Cook University (JCU).

Collection Method

Project-based scoping study, likely involving spatial analysis and economic modeling.

Time Range

2019-2020

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-10 19:53:58.650835; freshness should be verified due to the future date.

Geography

Burdekin and Mackay Whitsunday regions in the Great Barrier Reef catchment, Queensland, Australia.