2019-01-14 General Committee Agenda - Attachment 3 to Item 2 - Monitoring of Noosa River Oyster Reefs Nov 2018

Noosa River oyster reef restoration monitoring schedule
As part of the development approval for installing the oyster reefs, the stakeholders report
yearly (in December) to Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries on the
progress of the oyster restoration project, especially relating to;
   1. Oyster restoration unit stability (i.e. oyster reef restoration units remain within the
        allocated resource allocation areas);
   2. Restoration of natural recruitment processes over long term (i.e. spat recruitment
        rates demonstrate that the biogenic matrix will be sufficient to hold the structure of
        the oyster reef restoration units in place following complete degradation of the
        supporting coir material during the establishment phase and to facilitate ongoing
        natural recruitment processes);
   3. Equitable Community Impacts (i.e. ensuring fair community use of the river system is
        not impacted by placement of the Oyster Reef Restoration Units within the Resource
        Allocation Areas - to be monitored using a council operated community feedback
        system); and
   4. No negative impact on marine plants or shoreline erosion (i.e. ensuring the oyster
        restoration units do not impede natural marine plant growth or accelerate coastal
        erosion processes).
These performance objectives are quantified using established monitoring protocols for
oyster reef restoration, and follow international best practice for monitoring restored oyster
habitats (Baggett et al. 2014). The monitoring program is designed to be adaptive, with
annual reviews against the performance objectives for the project (See Table 2 for detailed
monitoring requirements).

Two monitoring events occurred in 2018; one 6 months post installation in May 2018, and
the other 12 months post installation in November 2018. The results of these monitoring
events are covered in this report. There have also been detailed surveys of the fish and
crustacean assemblages associating with the reefs throughout 2018. Although the details of
these surveys are not covered in this report, they are available from USC upon request.




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