Water Quality monitoring of Cleveland Bay for the Port of Townsville Limited

Five sites within Cleveland Bay were instrumented with Wetlabs NTU (turbidity), LiCor PAR (light as PAR) and Diver CTD instruments with monthly data download and collection of water samples for TSS analysis. Instruments were deployed in September 2014 and removed in August 2017 under a contract with the Port of Townsville Limited (PoTL).The work was to understand background and dredging turbidity within the bay. Sites were located in the eastern part of the Bay (JCU Seagrass Watch site 'Meadow-19' = Site CB), at Florence (Site FB), Geoffrey (Site GB) and Picnic Bays (Site PB) around magnetic Island and at Virago Shoals (Site VS) off Pallarenda.Data from the Cleveland Bay AIMS weather station were also provided along with MMP data for Picnic Bay. To monitor background levels of turbidity (as NTU and underwater light) in the Bay and to provide information on potential impacts of maintenance dredging on turbidity levels at sensitive receptor sites (Coral Reefs - Florence, Geoffrey and Picnic Bays, Seagrass - Virago Shoals and Meadow-19). Data was collected from September 2014 through to August 2017,