Port of Thursday Island Seagrass Monitoring

Dr Michael Rasheed, Queensland Department of Primary Industries & Fisheries

The Port of Thusday Island (Port Kennedy) is located in the Torres Strait and covers an area that includes wharf facilities on Thursday and Horn Islands. The Ports Corporation Queensland (PCQ) is the port authority for the community Port of Thursday Island. Port activities centre on the transhipment of cargo for Thursday Island and other Torres Strait Island Communities.

Seagrass meadows are known to occur in close proximity to port faclilties on Thursday Island (Coles personal observation) but until recently had been poorly mapped or quantified. These important fisheries habitats are potentially vulnerable to port activities and expansion and as such a joint project between PCQ, the Queensland Fisheries Services' Marine Ecology Group (DPI) and th e CRC Reef Reseach Centre was undertaken in March 2002 to provide a baseline of seagrass resources within the port limits (Rasheed et al 2003). The baseline survey found that grasses was the dominant benthic habitat and diverse seagrass communities covered the majority of the survey area. The Port contained a high diversity if seagrass species (11) and some of the best examples of intertidal and subtidal seagrass habitat that have been found in Queensland ports. The extensive seagrass distribution in the intertidal areas of Thursday and Horn Islands had implications for port and costal development. Seagrass meadows completely surrounded Thursday Island so any future port infrastructure developments or maintenance such as wharves, breakwaters, reclamations and channel dredging would be likely to have impacts on seagrass.

Givin the significance of seagrass and their associated dugong and turtle to the local people as well as the proximity of meadows to port infastructure and possible impacts associated with port and costal developments, future monitoring of seagrasses in the port was considered to be valuable. Regular seagrass monitoring would give a better picture of health of the seagrass meadows and provide a good indicator of overall environmental health in the port.