The project will contribute to quantifying coastal marine seafloor ecosystem functioning under proposed offshore aquaculture activities. Working with the team on the larger project ‘A novel approach to measuring the depositional footprint of the Blue Economy’ the PhD will integrate modelling with data collected by experiments. This will include developing process models, inform by the data, and deploying them in ecosystem models and decision support tools to assess the sustainability of proposed Blue Economy activities.

Generally, benthic processes (sediments) in biogeochemical models have been underrepresented when compared to their pelagic (water column) counterparts. The measured in situ benthic fluxes, using a novel eddy-covariance technique alongside traditional chamber measurements, present as an opportunity to critically evaluate and improve these processes in ecosystem models.

Outcomes created by the project centre around an improvement in understanding and quantifying environmental and ecosystem impacts of offshore aquaculture. In particular, how offshore benthic regions respond to enrichment, which at this stage is largely unknown. Improved ecosystem models can inform Government and industry on appropriate site selection and monitoring techniques for offshore aquaculture.