ABSTRACT
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Land Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Mangroves and Seagrass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Fringing Corals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Ecosystem Connectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Climate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
The Great Barrier Reef (GBR; Figure 1) extends approximately 2600 km along the eastern coast of Australia, from just north of Fraser Island in the south (25°S) to the coast of Papua New Guinea in the north (9.2°S). It is not a continuous barrier. Instead it is a matrix of more than 2800 individual reefs (Animation 1) ranging in size from 100 to 0.01 km2. Inter-reefal waters form channels which surround the reefs, and these channels can be several hundreds of metres to tens of kilometres wide. The assemblage of reefs and inter-reefal waters is called the GBR matrix. This matrix is located on the continental shelf. The shelf is impacted by runoff from Queensland rivers. The coast is rugged with numerous bays protected by headlands. Mangrove swamps are common in these bays as well as along tidal estuaries. To the east, the shelf faces the Coral Sea with depths at points exceeding 4000 m. The shelf is generally shallow with depth at the shelf break seldom exceeding 100 m. Much of the GBR lagoon, i.e., the channel between the mainland and the mid-shelf reefs, is less than 50 m in depth.
