Determining the ecological health of estuaries in North-Western Tasmania: Duck Bay

This study considered a range of water-column and sediment (benthos) based variables commonly used to monitor estuaries,utilising estuaries on the North-West Coast of Tasmania (Duck, Montagu, Detention, and Black River). These included: salinity, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, nutrient and chlorophyll a levels for the water-column; and sediment redox, organic carbon content, chlorophyll a and macroinvertebrate community structure amongst the benthos. In addition to comparing reference with impacted estuaries, comparisons were also made across seasons, commensurate with seasonal changes in freshwater river input, and between regions within estuaries (upper and lower reaches) - previously identified in Hirst et al. (2005). This design enabled us to examine whether the detection of impacts (i.e. differences between reference and impacted systems) was contingent on the time and location of sampling or independent of these factors. The data represented by this record was collected in the Duck Bay.

本研究选取了常用于河口监测的一系列水柱（water-column）与沉积物（底栖生物benthos）相关变量，以塔斯马尼亚州西北海岸的四座河口为研究对象，分别为达克河（Duck）、蒙塔古河（Montagu）、迪坦申河（Detention）与布莱克河（Black River）。所监测的变量包括：水柱的盐度、溶解氧、浊度、营养盐及叶绿素a浓度；底栖生境的沉积物氧化还原电位、有机碳含量、叶绿素a以及大型无脊椎动物群落结构。本研究除对比参照河口与受干扰河口外，还结合淡水输入的季节变化特征按季节开展对比分析，并针对河口内部的上游与下游河段区域进行比较——该实验设计框架已见于Hirst等人2005年的研究。本实验设计旨在探究：人类活动干扰的检出效果（即参照系统与受干扰系统间的差异）是否取决于采样时间与采样点位，抑或与这些因素无关。本数据集记录的所有数据均采集于达克湾（Duck Bay）。