Experimental Environmental-Economic Accounts for the Great Barrier Reef

Following the heavy rainfall events of 2010-11, marine ecosystems showed an overall decline in condition but started to show signs of recovery from 2012-13 to 2014-15. Marine condition is heavily influenced by cyclones, severe weather events, rainfall and pollutant run-off.

• Water quality scores in the GBR Region and all six NRM regions declined between 2007-08 and 2010-11, after large storm and flooding events, and then fluctuated through to 2014-15. There were five Category 5 cyclones in the region between 2006 and 2015, following a period from 1970 until 2006 where there were no Category 5 cyclones recorded, highlighting the increase in frequency and severity of storms in recent years.
• From 2005-06 to 2014-15, the coral condition decreased, based on coral condition scores presented in the Great Barrier Reef Report Card 2015. All NRM regions reported an increase from 2013-14 to 2014-15, following large decreases after the 2010-11 flooding events. Coral condition change is a balance between disturbance events and regrowth rates. Repeated disturbances such as the 2016 and 2017 bleaching events and increased cyclone events are likely to both directly damage and reduce coral condition and to impact on regrowth rates. It should be noted that these last two bleaching events occurred outside the reference period for this publication, with respect to coral condition scores, and the impact of these will be reflected in future updates.
• Seagrass decline is thought to be due to a range of impacts such as deposition of nutrients and sediments from agriculture, and marine-based activities such as dredging and anchor damage. In the last few years, the trending decline of seagrass meadows appears to have slowed and in some cases reversed, in part due to decreased rainfall leading to lower volumes of discharge and river loads.
• The abundance of selected fish species has remained relatively stable across the majority of NRM region marine extensions between 2001 and 2017. The exception is the Burnett Mary NRM region, which experienced an overall decrease of 11% in the number of fish species recorded between 2001 and 2017.

The greatest land use within the GBR Catchment Area was Livestock grazing, accounting for 67% of the total land use, in both 2011 and 2016. A matrix land account that integrates land use and dynamic land cover is presented in the Terrestrial Extent and Condition section of this publication.

• The predominance of Livestock grazing means that, as well as being a major source of value to the agriculture industry, the nature of grazing activity and practices will have an influence over the ecosystem regulatory services capacity of the catchment. This is discussed in more detail in the Ecosystem Regulatory Services section of this publication.
• In recent years, Livestock grazing expanded, in net terms, into land which was previously classed as Vacant residential and Other agriculture - cropping, while losing land, in net terms, to land classed to Extractive industries.
• Pollutant loads move from land into rivers, then into the Marine Park, and are monitored as 'river loads', measured at catchment end-of-system sites. Monitored pollutant loads leaving catchments vary considerably from year-to-year, mainly due to differences in annual rainfall and runoff. Overall, the Burdekin and Fitzroy NRM regions contributed the highest quantity of total suspended solids (fine sediment) and nutrient river loads between 2006-07 and 2014-15.

• Biodiversity in the GBR Region contributes significantly to the health of the Reef and its Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) and is incorporated in estimates of these factors.
• In the GBR Region between 1994 and 2017, Birds and Reptiles showed little overall movement between threat categories. Four extra species of Mammals became Vulnerable, while Fish and Invertebrates saw two and three species, respectively, become Endangered. Frogs fared worst among the groups of fauna, with ten species added to the Endangered category, one species to Vulnerable, and five to Near Threatened. The primary threat to each faunal group was habitat loss and degradation; other key threats across all groups were feral species and climate change. Species in scope are those deemed threatened according to the Queensland Nature Conservation Act 1992, with a distribution range within the GBR Region.

A summary of benefits produced using ecosystem services in physical measures for the GBR Region (2006-07 to 2015-16) is presented in Table 3.

• Of the provisioning services identified, sugar provided the greatest contribution in volume in 2014-15, with 29.6 million tonnes produced; this was an increase of 4% from 2013-14.
• The biocarbon stored in the GBR Catchment Area decreased by 21.2 megatonnes (-1%) from 2007-08 to 2014-15, highlighting changes to landscape within the region.
   

The value of the benefits for selected ecosystem services is summarised in Table 4. Meat cattle had the greatest value of production in the region, accounting for 43% of the total food production in 2014-15. Tourism consumption peaked in 2012-13, with total consumption of $9,432 million.

The impacts of severe weather events in 2010-11 (including extremely high rainfall, cyclones and flooding) on agricultural production appear to have been broadly negative, with marked declines in tonnes produced in sugar (-19%), horticulture (-26%) and broadacre crops (-25%). Livestock meat production appears to have been only modestly impacted. A relationship can be drawn between agricultural production and practices and the impact of agricultural runoff on water quality, but the data also suggests that the timing of any such impacts may be determined more by peak rainfall events than by timing of productive activity.

Table 5 presents a summary of ecosystem service input (resource rent) for selected industries in the GBR Region.

• Ecosystem services input, as calculated by the resource rent method, is the residual value after deducting labour, materials and produced capital as inputs to production. It is defined as the input by ecosystem services to production.
• In 2014-15 the ecosystem services input for GBR Region Agriculture was $1.2 billion. This ecosystem services input was 44% of Gross Operating Surplus for Agriculture, and has risen as a share of Gross Operating Surplus from 12% in 2007-08. This rise was due to a number of factors, including the end of the Millennium Drought during the 2000s and declining costs of produced capital since the Global Financial Crisis.
• Tourism rent in 2015-16 was $0.6 billion, or 15.6% of tourism GVA. Tourism rent is the resource rent calculated as a value extracted from all tourist attractions. Ecosystems feature prominently among tourist attractions in the GBR Region.

• In terms of the total $494 million expenditure on environmental goods and services aimed at protecting the Reef, local government was the largest contributor to these expenditures, accounting for $229 million (46% of total), followed by the Australian Government with $145 million (29%), Queensland Government $78 million (16%) and non-government sources $41 million (8%).

• The number of visitors to the GBR Region increased from 15.2 million in 2007-08 to 17.8 million in 2015-16. This change is reflected in the value of direct tourism consumption, which increased from $8.4b to $10.0b.
• The number of visits to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park increased from 1.9 million to 2.3 million across the reference period. The value of revenue collected in the Marine Park increased by 20% in the same period, from $7.3 million to $8.8 million, due to gradual increases in part-day and full-day charges.
• Tourism employed about 46,000 people in the GBR Region in 2015-16. Between 2010-11 and 2014-15 tourism employment contributed about 8.2%, on average, of total employment in the region. This would make tourism, if counted as an industry, one of the more significant employing industries in the region. As a comparison, Education and Training jobs made up about 8.1% of total jobs in 2011-12.
• The Wet Tropics NRM region, centred around Cairns, records much higher tourism expenditure than in other NRM regions with comparable or greater numbers of total visitors. The region sees significantly more international visitors (4.8 million visitors in 2015-16) than any other NRM region. The attractiveness of the area is likely due in part to its positioning as a well-known destination, specifically for tropical ecosystem related attractions. Cairns and Port Douglas are two of the major launching point for tours to the Great Barrier Reef, as the Reef is quite close to the shoreline in this part of the catchment compared with further south.

• This account highlights linkages between changes to the regulatory environment for fishing in the GBR Region and subsequent changes to the richness of fish species observed. Between 2003-04 and 2004-05 the value of fishing production in the region fell by $45.7 million (25%); fishing tonnage produced fell by 27%, number of licences was down 16% and fishing effort in person days fell 22%. Production per person day of effort was largely unchanged during this transition. The GBR Marine Park was rezoned in 2004, coinciding with a Commonwealth government buy back of a portion of commercial fishing licence quotas and a number of other drivers of reduced fishing activity which are detailed in the relevant section of this publication
• With the reduction in fishing production, the fish abundance scores observed in the Marine Park show that abundance has been substantially maintained, exhibiting fluctuations in year to year observations but with no clear decline trend. Fish abundance scores are a measure of marine condition - for further discussion, refer to the section on Marine Extent and Condition.
• Across the full reporting period 2001-02 to 2015-16, the value of fishing production decreased by 46%, from $190 million to $104 million. Physical production decreased by 46%, from 15,341 tonnes to 8,259 tonnes, over the same period. Licence numbers and fishing effort also decreased by 52% and 45% respectively.
• The resource rent of fishing increased by 62%, from $28 million to $45 million, between 2004-05 and 2014-15.

• The use of water for irrigation in agricultural activities in the GBR Catchment Area has increased from 2010-11 to 2015-16 by an estimated 135%, from 773,979 ML in 2010-11 to 1,821,593 ML in 2015-16. Burdekin was the NRM region that accounted for the largest proportion of water use in the GBR Catchment Area, representing 58% of water used for agricultural activity in 2015-16.
• In 2014-15, the gross value of irrigated agricultural production in the GBR Catchment Area was $2.2 billion. Of this, Sugar had the highest value of irrigated production, accounting for 32% of the total in 2014-15, and used 69% of total water applied to agricultural activity.
• As of June 2016, 760,649 ML of water was stored in large urban dams and 4,429,438 ML of water was stored in large rural dams.

• 'Forests' stored the greatest amount of carbon above and below ground in the GBR Region, with a total of 2,134 Mt C (76%) in 2015-16, followed by 'Grasslands' and 'Mangroves', with 435 Mt C (15%) and 149 Mt C (5%) respectively. While 'Mangroves' only accounted for 5% of the total stored carbon in the GBR Region, they recorded the highest density, 687 tonnes per hectare.
• The rate of decrease in carbon stocks was very rapid between 1989 and 1997, but has slowed in recent years. This reduced rate of loss of biocarbon can be attributed to forest regrowth and slowing of losses from grasslands, resulting in net gain of forest carbon stocks from 2008 to present. Although forest carbon has increased, there has still been an overall net decrease of biocarbon stored in the GBR Region.

Water quality scores retrieved from the Great Barrier Reef Report Card Series are indexes based on a number of remotely sensed measures. Water quality scores have fluctuated since 2005-06, and generally fell to their lowest point in 2010-11, after large storm and flooding events (Graph 1). In 2014-15 the Wet Tropics and the Fitzroy NRM regions both reported poor condition, while all other NRM regions reported moderate condition. Water quality was not evaluated for the Cape York and the Burnett Mary NRM regions because of limited ground-level data available for validation.

Note that in 2011-12 there were major improvements to the remote sensing methods to measure water quality in the GBR Marine Park. The full historical time-series was updated by the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) - it is available through the eReefs Marine Water Quality Dashboard. A summary of these data are presented in Table 2 below.

Users should note that a revised water quality metric was developed in 2015-2016 as an initial step towards integrating multiple streams of data to measure and report water quality condition. The previous metric relied exclusively on satellite data, whereas the new metric is underpinned by the eReefs biogeochemical model integrated with satellite images for improved accuracy in what is commonly referred to as a data assimilation process. The Great Barrier Reef Report Card 2016, scheduled for publication in September 2017 (and not available at the time of release of this publication), will utilise the CSIRO eReefs marine water quality model for its ability to deliver a more accurate water quality assessment than reporting based on remote sensing.

The BoM produces a number of water quality measures using satellite imagery. Table 2 indicates that chlorophyll-a concentration, for the inshore marine water bodies within the GBR Region, increased by 23% between 2002 and 2016, from 0.62 mg m-3 to 0.76 mg m-3. These concentrations were above the "trigger value" of 0.45 mg m-3 (footnote1); that is, the value that should trigger management actions, according to the Water Quality Guidelines for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The Fitzroy, Mackay Whitsunday and Cape York NRM regions reported the highest concentrations of non-algal particulates (NAP), with concentrations of 4.41, 2.45 and 2.35 g m-3, respectively. These scores exceeded the trigger value of 2.0 g m-3 for NAP. A full time series of data for each measure are available in the Data downloads section.

The presence of coral is central to the GBR Region being listed as a World Heritage Area. It is also critical for fish populations, the provision of recreational activities (such as snorkelling), and for other important ecosystem services, such as coastal hazard risk reduction and adaptation.

Inshore reefs of the Great Barrier Reef form only a small part of the World Heritage Area, but their health has high significance, and their proximity to land exposes them to additional threats. Inshore reefs are used extensively for recreational activities, such as fishing. They are more exposed to river runoff and pollution from the adjacent catchment, coastal development and shipping and many are located where bleaching risk is high. Inshore reefs are therefore specifically monitored to support the Reef Water Quality Protection Plan.

Graph 2 below shows condition scores measured at inshore sites, which are based on a number of variables. Overall condition score for coral is the average of component scores for combined hard and soft coral cover, coral change, proportional macroalgal cover, juvenile density and coral community composition (footnote 2). In 2015 the Reef Water Quality Protection Plan method for measuring inshore coral condition changed. The time series for coral was hindcast so that results were comparable with the 2014-15 results.

The Fitzroy region reported the lowest coral condition score during this period and recorded the largest overall decline. All NRM regions showed an increase from 2013-14 to 2014-15 following large decreases after the 2010-11 flooding events. Cumulative impacts, including the recent bleaching events and a series of category 3, 4 and 5 cyclones, are likely to impede recovery. No coral monitoring occurs in the Cape York or Burnett Mary regions under the Marine Monitoring Program.

Hard coral cover is a component of inshore coral condition, and data on this characteristic is also available for offshore areas. Table 3 and 4 below present hard coral cover as a measure of condition for coral across the marine area. Users should note that the two tables contain an average of monitored data points drawn from two monitoring programs, the inshore Marine Monitoring Program (MMP) and the offshore Long-Term Monitoring Program (LTMP).

The tables below show coral condition up to the survey season of 2015-16, a year in which coral condition had improved in the absence of major disturbances prior to the two recent mass bleaching events. In 2017, however, there was significant decline in hard coral cover in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park overall, especially in the northern parts of the Reef. For long-term trend estimates of hard coral coverage based on offshore coral observations and modelled to cover the entire Reef rather than only monitored sites, refer to GBR Condition Summary 2016-17, published by AIMS. This report shows that "over the past 12 months hard coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef declined by about a quarter".

The Northern inshore and Northern offshore GRMPA Management sectors have seen great declines in coral cover since 2007 but recovered somewhat in 2016. Users should again note that northern hard coral cover measured in the Long-Term Monitoring Program declined substantially in 2017 and to refer to GBR Condition Summary 2016-17 published on the AIMS website.

Hard coral cover percentage change is a product of the balance of disturbances and regrowth. Bleaching and poor water quality can affect rates of regrowth, therefore contributing to declines in coral cover and condition through reduced resilience (footnote 3). Crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks and cyclones have been identified as leading causes of disturbance and decline in coral cover (footnote 4).

Tables 3 and 4 show that in recent years up to 2016 there was an increase in coral cover in some sectors and NRM regions due to the absence of new disturbances. The GBR experienced mass coral bleaching events in 1998, 2002, 2016 and then again in 2017 which was beyond the 2017 reporting period covered by these tables. Steeper declines in hard coral cover for 2017 reporting year have been recorded in GBR Condition Summary 2016-17 published by AIMS, showing the impact of the 2016 bleaching event. The Reef experienced the worst coral bleaching event on record in 2016, due to high sea surface temperatures combined with a strong El Niño event - GBRMPA have estimated that 29% of shallow-water coral cover on the GBR was lost as result of this bleaching (footnote 3).

Coral bleaching has had a varied impact across the GBR Marine Park as highlighted in Figure 2 below. Bleaching in 2016 did not strongly impact southern areas such as Fitzroy and Burnett Mary. Although marine condition has not been reported since Cyclone Debbie in late March 2017, it is expected that there has since been further decline in coral condition due to that cyclone and these two bleaching events.

Source: ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies

Note: Composite map of surveyed corals across the 2016 and 2017 back-to-back bleaching events. Not all data is shown, only reefs at either end of the bleaching spectrum: Red circles indicate reefs undergoing most severe bleaching (60% or more of visible corals bleaching) Green circles indicate reefs with no or only minimal bleaching (10% or less coral bleaching).

Seagrass meadows are an important part of the Outstanding Universal Values and ecological functions of the Reef. As well as stabilising sea-floor sediments, seagrass meadows are the habitat for a diverse range of species including globally significant populations of dugongs, fish, turtles and other animals, some of which are becoming endangered. Seagrass meadows also support a range of carbonate-secreting organisms that may contribute to removal of atmospheric carbon.

In the last few years, the trending decline of seagrass meadows appears to have slowed and in some cases reversed. Graph 3 shows that inshore seagrass condition reached its lowest point in 2011-12 and has since recovered and then stabilised. Seagrass decline is thought to be due to a range of impacts such as reduced light (cloud cover from storms, land-based runoff), cyclone-induced scouring of the seabed, deposition of nutrients and sediments from agriculture, and marine-based activities such as dredging and tourism (for example, localised impacts from anchor damage).

Graph 4 shows that the Fitzroy NRM region has had the greatest decline in seagrass condition over the period of 2005-06 to 2014-15. In 2014-15, most NRM marine regions experienced poor condition with the exceptions of Burdekin which reported moderate condition, and Fitzroy which reported very poor condition. The improvement in condition was largely a result of an increase in abundance and reproductive effort, indicating localised recovery after Cyclone Yasi in 2010-11.

The diversity of fish species in the marine area is recognised in the World Heritage listing of the GBR Region. There are 1,625 species in the area, of which 1,400 are coral reef species. The presence and abundance of selected fish species is considered an ecosystem condition measure. Table 5 presents data from the AIMS Long-Term Monitoring Program, presented by NRM marine region.

Fish species presence data were sourced from the Long-Term Monitoring Program (LTMP) produced by the AIMS. Data are collected across sites designed to monitor the impact of the 2004 re-zoning. The numbers of fish sighted in each sample area were averaged per reef and referenced against a list of 'easy-to-identify' species. The methods used depend on direct observations and the location of collections slightly change from year to year and this may impact on the reliability of estimates. Threatened species information is also presented in the Biodiversity section of this publication.

Table 5 shows that the abundance of selected fish species has remained relatively stable across the majority of NRM marine regions between 2001 and 2017. The exception is the Burnett Mary NRM region, which experienced an overall decrease of 13% in the number of fish species recorded between 2001 and 2017, despite an increase of 35% in the number of species between 2013 and 2017. The Mackay Whitsunday NRM region recorded an increase of 8% in fish species over the period from 2001 to 2017, the largest increase among the NRM regions.

The Reef condition is affected by factors related to climate change, including rising sea surface temperature, rising sea levels, ocean acidification, severe weather events and increased cyclone intensity, as well as pollutant run-off, crown-of-thorns outbreaks and other natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Below are statistics presented on some of the key drivers of marine condition. These help provide context in interpreting marine condition. Note that pollutant run-off (river loads) is explored in the Terrestrial Extent and Condition section.

Graph 5 shows that 2016 recorded the highest sea surface temperature (SST) over the period of 2002-2016 in the GBR Region, with a yearly mean temperature of 26 degrees Celsius. The yearly mean sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) for 2016 was 0.83 degrees Celsius above the average long-term average (see Methodology). Data on sea surface temperature and sea surface temperature anomaly were sourced from the Bureau of Meteorology eReefs Marine Water Quality Dashboard. Refer to the Data downloads section for a time series (from 2002-2016) of this information.

Severe weather events damage Reef health and, combined with floods, increase pollutant run-off. There has been a series of Severe Tropical Cyclones (Categories 3, 4 and 5) since 2000 that have severely impacted the GBR Region, particularly the marine habitats. From 1970 until 2006 (Cyclone Larry) there were no Category 5 cyclones recorded. However, there were five Category 5 cyclones between 2006 and 2015 (footnote 5) - these included cyclone Larry (2005-06 cyclone season), Hamish (2008-09), Yasi (2010-11), Ita (2013-14) and Marcia (2014-15), highlighting the increase in frequency and severity of storms in recent years.

Crown-of-thorns-starfish (COTS) can cause declines in coral cover (footnote 4), particularly when COTS numbers increase over a relatively short period of time and the starfish consume coral tissues faster than the coral can recover. The figure below shows the proportion of COTS outbreaks per sampled reefs. In 2013, around 27% of the reefs sampled by AIMS had active outbreaks. There is evidence to suggest flood plumes and elevated nutrients exacerbate COTS outbreaks, by promoting plankton blooms (footnote 6). These blooms increase food supply for COTS larvae and other species (footnote 7). There is evidence that certain hydrodynamic circulation patterns on the GBR, caused by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), may also influence the occurrence of primary outbreaks. Predator removal is also hypothesised to contribute to COTS outbreaks. For example, the giant triton snail, humphead Maori wrasse, sweetlip emperor and starry puffer fish feed on the COTS. While these predators do not solely feed on COTS, predation pressure is thought to be an important factor in controlling COTS populations (footnote 8).

1. Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Water Quality Guidelines for Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, 2010, GBRMPA, Townsville, pg 68. 
2. Thompson, A., P. Costello, J. Davidson, M. Logan, K. Gunn, and B. Schaffelke. 2016. Marine Monitoring Program. Annual Report of AIMS Activities 2014 to 2015– Inshore Coral Reef Monitoring. Report for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. Townsville: Australian Institute of Marine Science.
3. Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. 2017, Final report: 2016 coral bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef, GBRMPA, Townsville.
4. De'ath G, Fabricius KE, Sweatman H, Puotinen M. (2012). The 27-year decline of coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef and its causes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 190:17995-17999.
5. Bureau of Meteorology, Commonwealth of Australia The Australian Tropical Cyclone Database. 
6. Wooldridge SA, Brodie JE. (2015). Environmental triggers for primary outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Marine Pollution Bulletin. 101(2): 805-815.
7. Fabricius KE, Okaji K, De'ath G. (2010) Three lines of evidence to link outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns seastar Acanthaster planci to the release of larval food limitation. Coral Reefs 29: 593-605.
8. Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. Crown-of-thorns-starfish, What is the problem?

As land use and land cover affect the provision of ecosystem services, measuring changes over time is critical in evaluating and monitoring trends in natural resource condition.

Land use reflects both the activities undertaken and the institutional arrangements put in place for a given area for the purposes of economic production, or the maintenance and restoration of environmental functions (SEEA Central Framework 2012). Land cover refers to the observed physical and biological cover of the Earth’s surface and includes natural vegetation and abiotic surface (SEEA Central Framework 2012).

In June 2017, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) published Land Account: Queensland, Experimental Estimates, 2011 - 2016 (cat. no. 4609.0.55.003), which featured an article Accounting for Land Changes in the Great Barrier Reef.

This section expands upon the data presented in the Land Account by incorporating a matrix of land use and land cover to look at combined changes of land use and land cover over time. Integrating spatial data about land cover extent and condition means that ecosystem characteristics can be linked to economic agents (or units), which can be aggregated to industries (land use). Land cover provides information on the generation of ecosystem services, while land use provides the use of these services (Keith et al, 2016).

The land use and land cover matrix in Table 1 shows that, between 2011 and 2016:

• the land use category that increased the most was Livestock Grazing (a net increase of 166,726 ha). Livestock Grazing experienced increases from the land cover categories of Grasslands (474,817 ha) and Woody Shrubs (81,546 ha) and decreases from Rainfed Land (143,773 ha) and Trees (164,721 ha);
• Extractive industries also experienced large net increases in land use area (69,583 ha), mainly from the land cover category of Grasslands (70,663 ha);
• the Land Use category with the greatest decrease was Vacant Residential (a net decrease of 94,891 ha), with most of this decrease coming from the land cover of Trees (93,620 ha);
• the Agricultural Cropping land use categories both experienced decreases. Land used for Sugar Cane decreased by 27,776 ha, mainly through decreases in Irrigated Land (11,868 ha), while 'All Other' Agricultural Cropping decreased by 83,874 ha, with decreases in Rainfed Land (37,767 ha) the major contributor;
• land used for Residential purposes increased by 8,670 ha; most of this (86%) was converted from a land cover of Trees;
• the land cover category that increased the most was Grasslands (a net increase of 611,335 ha); a large proportion of this was additions to the Livestock Grazing land use category (474,817 ha); and
• the Wetlands land cover category, which includes flood plains and wetlands areas, recorded a decrease of 84,783 ha, however this was mainly due to the 2010-11 period experiencing floods; therefore, changes from this period of flooding to the relatively dry conditions of 2015 explain the decrease in the Wetlands land cover category over the two points in time. A similar story applies to the decrease in the land cover of Trees (379,053 ha), reflecting changes from a wet, green period in 2011 to the drier 2015 period. The scope of the land cover component of the Land Account only covers the period from 2010-11 to 2014-15.
   

As mentioned above, in June 2017 the ABS published an updated Land Account for Queensland, which featured an article, Accounting for Land Changes in the Great Barrier Reef. Key findings from the article included:

• the greatest total land use in the GBR Catchment Area was Livestock Grazing, which covered 67% of the total area in both 2011 and 2016; this type of land use also reported the largest increase in land area, from 32.2 million ha in 2011 to 32.4 million ha in 2016;
• Residential land use was the largest contributor to unimproved land value within the GBR Catchment Area, accounting for 58% of total land value ($76.4 billion in 2016);
• the largest decrease in land use area was attributable to Forestry – commercial timber production, at 38% or 37,741 ha. This land use decreased from 99,941 ha in 2011 to 62,200 ha in 2016, largely due to the reclassification of 33,546 ha to Livestock Grazing; note that this is a reclassification of primary land use and does not necessarily indicate a decline in forestry;
• for land cover, the largest net change in broad land cover was for Grasslands, with an increase of 611,424 ha (from 11.5 million ha in 2010-11, to 12.1 million ha in 2014-15);
• the land cover type which had the largest broad land cover was Trees, accounting for about two-thirds of the GBR Catchment Area in 2010-11 and 2014-15; and
• Woody shrubs experienced the greatest percentage change of all broad land cover classes, with a 175% increase between 2010-11 and 2014-15 (53,469 ha to 147,133 ha).

The Land Account also features regional information for Natural Resource Management Regions (NRMRs) - data are available in the Land Accounts datacube in the Data downloads section (Table 5-8). In 2014-15 about half (47%) of the total Rainfed lands in the GBR Catchment Area were located in the Fitzroy NRMR, followed by the Burnett Mary NRMR and the Burdekin NRMR, accounting for 26% and 11% respectively. In the same year, the Mackay Whitsunday NRMR reported the greatest area of Irrigated and Rainfed Sugar (38%), followed by the Burdekin NRMR (30%) and the Wet Tropics NRMR (23%). The Fitzroy NRMR reported the greatest area of Extraction Sites with 65,381 ha (74%) of the total Extraction Sites in the GBR Catchment Area.

Suspended solids (or fine sediment), nitrogen, phosphorus and pesticides have all been shown to negatively affect the quality of marine environments and represent important indicators on the influence of land-based activities on the downstream marine environment. Suspended solids, nitrogen and phosphorus are all naturally occurring river loads that have increased over time with human development of the GBR Catchment Area, while pesticides are all of anthropogenic origin.

This section presents monitored load data for indicative river systems in the GBR Catchment Area over the period 2006-07 to 2014-15. The data in this section refer to load estimates at end-of-system sites in ten priority catchments (in the six GBR NRM regions) discharging into the GBR lagoon (see Methodology or more details). The selected catchments constitute around 80% (averaged over the reference period) of the total GBR Catchment Area. These catchments had previously been identified by the Reef Plan (2003) as high risk to the Reef in terms of contaminant exports and therefore they were recommended for priority monitoring. The ten catchments were also consistently monitored throughout the reference period and therefore suitable for a time series. Note that PSII inhibiting pesticides are the focus here, however recent monitoring of the GBR Catchment Area includes a broader range of pesticides.

The 2013 Scientific Consensus Statement highlights that "the main land uses contributing pollutant loads are rangeland grazing for sediment, rangeland grazing and sugar cane for total nitrogen and total phosphorus, and sugar cane for PSII inhibiting pesticides."

Please note that presented here are 'monitored' loads, as tracked by the Great Barrier Reef Catchment Loads Monitoring Program, rather than 'modelled' loads, as estimated by the Great Barrier Reef Catchment Loads Modelling Program, and reported in the annual Great Barrier Reef Report Cards. Monitored pollutant loads leaving catchments vary considerably from year-to-year, mainly due to differences in annual rainfall and runoff. Therefore, catchment modelling is used to estimate the long-term annual pollutant load reductions due to the adoption of improved land management practices. This removes the impact of factors such as climate variability. Research suggests time lags to monitor the improvements from land management practice change could range from years for pesticides, to up to decades for nutrients and sediments, due to the high level of climate variability.

Tables 2 and 3 below provide annual estimates for four types of annual loads: total suspended solids (TSS), total nitrogen (TN), particulate nitrogen (PN) and total phosphorus (TP). Table 4 provides estimates of PSII inhibiting pesticides.

This publication presents data for total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP), however users should note that these pollutants occur in particulate, dissolved inorganic and dissolved organic forms. The 2013 Scientific Consensus Statement on land use impacts on water quality and ecosystem condition notes that: "Overall, increased nitrogen inputs are more important than phosphorus inputs. Dissolved inorganic forms of nitrogen and phosphorus are considered to be of greater concern than dissolved organic and particulate forms as they are immediately bioavailable for supporting algal growth. Particulate forms of nitrogen and phosphorus mostly become bioavailable, but over longer time frames. Most dissolved organic nitrogen typically has limited and delayed bioavailability." For more detail on these key breakdowns of forms of nitrogen and phosphorus, please refer to the Reef Report Card 2015.

The total amount of measured discharge for the monitored rivers in the GBR Catchment Area varied substantially between consecutive years in all NRM regions (Graph 1), highlighting the effects of rainfall over the period (see Graph 2). For mean annual rainfall for each NRM region see Table 4.1 in the Data downloads section.

Table 2 below shows that the total amount of TSS and nutrient loads in the GBR Catchment Area all varied considerably between consecutive years in all NRM regions. A key reason for this volatility is the effect of rainfall and subsequent volume of river flow. For example, the 2010-11 flood events increased river loads across all NRM regions; however, loads returned to pre-flood levels by 2011-12 in most regions. The variability in loads between NRM regions is also driven by differences in catchment size and land use (Joo et al, 2012). Please note that these are monitored loads and do not account for the proportion of the load that is considered naturally occurring and not due to human development in the region.

More than half of the total TSS and nutrient loads from the monitored catchment areas were discharged from the large inland Burdekin and Fitzroy NRM regions (predominantly grazing country).

Table 3 below presents yields of TSS, total nitrogen and total phosphorus. Annual yields (loads per unit area) are useful for comparing exports of catchments of different areas. The yields were computed by dividing the annual load by the monitored catchment area.

Although more than half of the TSS and nutrient loads from the monitored catchment areas were discharged from the large inland Burdekin and Fitzroy NRM regions (predominantly grazing country), the highest TSS and nutrient yields per unit area were produced in the wetter and proportionately more intensively cultivated Wet Tropics and Mackay Whitsunday NRM regions.

Note that the updated Scientific Consensus Statement (2017) for the Reef, which was not available at the time of publication, will include a comprehensive analysis of loads monitoring and modelling.

The monitored annual loads of pesticides, represented by the suite of photosystem II inhibiting pesticides, including total diuron, ametryn, total atrazine, hexazinone and tebuthiuron, were calculated for the ten end-of-catchment sites across the six NRM regions. Note that the total pesticide load to the Great Barrier Reef lagoon is likely to be considerably larger, given that another 28 pesticides have been detected in the rivers, according to the 2013 Scientific Consensus Statement.

Table 4 below displays the amount of pesticide loads for the monitored catchments in the NRM regions in the GBR Catchment Area. In 2014-15 the Fitzroy NRM region produced the largest amounts tebuthiuron. This could be attributed to the fact that the Fitzroy NRM region accounts for the majority of meat cattle production in the GBR Catchment Area and tebuthiuron is commonly used in such production. The Fitzroy region also reported the highest levels of atrazine for the majority of the period. The NRM regions with the highest monitored levels of diuron throughout the reference period were the Mackay Whitsunday and Wet Tropics regions. The Wet Tropics region also recorded the highest monitored levels of hexazinone in every year of the reference period.

Note that pesticide loads provide an indication of the volumes of pesticides being transported from terrestrial sources, however, it is the concentrations of pesticides in an aquatic ecosystem that signify the magnitude of pesticide risk.

There were no significant movements between threat categories between 1994 and 2017 for threatened birds of the GBR Region. The only species of bird classified as extinct in this region is the Paradise Parrot, which was classified as extinct prior to the 1994 opening period, with the last confirmed sighting in 1927. Over the accounting period, three species were downgraded from the Endangered category, and four species were downgraded from the Vulnerable category.

The main threats to the birds of the GBR Region are habitat loss and degradation, climate change, invasive species and coastal development. Some of the bird species included here are very mobile and sometimes have international ranges such as the oceanic and long-distance migratory species; therefore threats geographically external to the GBR Region also impact on this group of birds. For example, species like the Eastern Curlew have shifted to a greater level of threat between 1994 and 2017, partly because they are subject to threatening processes on their migration route and at their breeding grounds in the northern hemisphere. Others like the endemic Regent Honeyeater have experienced an increased level of threat since 1994 due to local threatening processes. Some species have remained in the same threat category since 1994, like the Wandering Albatross, which is threatened by longline fishing practices.

Between 1994 and 2017, one species (the Bramble Cay Melomys) was declared extinct in 2016 and is a suspected casualty of climate change. While one species was downgraded from Endangered to Vulnerable, an additional five species moved into the Vulnerable category, bringing the closing stock for 2017 to eight species. Two new mammal species were described since 1994 - the Australian Snubfin Dolphin (in 2005) and the Silver-headed Antechinus (in 2013).

General threats to the mammals of the GBR Region include habitat clearing and degradation, climate change and the impact of feral species. More specifically, these threats can include the destruction of mammal habitat such as forest, mangrove, and wetland habitats due to reclamation projects, marine aquaculture, tourist facilities and agricultural and urban development; mining; timber harvesting and forest management; inappropriate fire regimes; the creation of habitat fragments; and the degradation of habitat by livestock grazing. Climate change threats include increased drought frequency and severity, and increased storm occurrence and severity. Feral species pose threats such as the degradation of habitat, direct predation, and competition by animals such as feral cats, dogs, foxes, pigs, goats, and also weed invasion of habitat. Additionally, the disturbance of roosting sites (for bats), fatalities from roads and barbed wire fences, and shark nets (for dolphins) are threats.

The worldwide hunting of whales has largely halted. For example, the Humpback Whale was close to extinction and was listed as Endangered as late as 1988. This species has since rebounded and was listed as of 'least concern' in 2008.

From 1994 to 2017 two species were added to the Endangered category; otherwise, little movement occurred between categories, with two species remaining in the Vulnerable category. Note that there are only low numbers of fish species listed.

The main pressures on the threatened fish populations in the GBR Region are the loss and degradation of habitat. More specifically, this entails the development and modification of marine and freshwater habitats for residential, forestry and agricultural purposes. Other threats include fishing bycatch from both recreational and commercial fishing, aquarium collecting and competition from exotic species of fish.

The threatened status of reptiles in the GBR Region has remained fairly stable compared to other faunal groups between 1994 and 2017, with the addition of only one species to the Near Threatened category. No extinctions were reported during this period, however a newly-described species (the Gulbaru Gecko) was added to the Endangered category.

The main threats specific to the GBR Region reptile population are habitat loss and degradation. Specifically this includes land clearing for agriculture and coastal development, and feral predators such as cats, foxes and cane toads. Inappropriate fire regimes, grazing and possibly climate change are also considerations. For marine turtles outside the GBR Region, fisheries bycatch and the collection of eggs and adults are a threatening process; this highlights the international importance of the GBR Region as a protected refuge for species that have an international range (for example, marine turtles).

Between 1994 and 2017, six new species of frog were described; these were the Magnificent Brooding-frog in 1994, the Mountain Nurseryfrog in 1994, the Melville Range Tree Frog in 1997, the Cape Melville Boulder-frog in 1998, the Tapping Nurseryfrog described in 2004, and the Kuranda Tree Frog in 2007. In this same time period three frog extinctions were also recorded - the Northern Gastric Brooding Frog (2002), Southern Gastric Brooding Frog (2002), and the Southern Day-frog (2004). In addition, since 1994 ten species were added to the Endangered category, one to the Vulnerable category and five to the Near Threatened category. Only two frog species were downgraded in threat status during this period.

The main overarching threats to this faunal group are the spread of the chytrid fungus (chytridiomycosis) and the loss and degradation of habitat. More specifically, threatened frogs are vulnerable to introduced animal species as predators and as degraders of frog habitat; introduced plants which choke out suitable habitat; water pollution and altered hydrology; increased nutrient loads and sedimentation; and inappropriate fire regimes. The introduction of the devastating chytrid fungus is a worldwide problem for amphibians which may be exacerbated by climate change.

Invertebrates are by far the most numerous faunal group, with approximately 300,000 species of land invertebrates alone estimated in Australia, and only 15% of these thought to be formally described (Australian Museum, 2009). This faunal group currently has very few species listed as threatened. Table 7 reflects the paucity of knowledge around this faunal group, rather than it being an informed assessment in having genuinely low numbers of threatened species.

One new species, the Dulacca Woodland Snail, was described in 2010. Between 1994 and 2017, the Illidge’s Ant-blue and a species of crayfish were elevated to higher threat categories, and another species of crayfish had become Endangered. In terms of threats, the crayfish are vulnerable to localised impacts such as fire, habitat loss and over collection, the potential effects of climate change, and feral species, particularly cane toads. The Illidge’s Ant-blue is primarily threatened by the destruction of their mangrove habitat.

Major employing industries in the GBR Region include Health care and social assistance, Construction, Retail trade, and Mining.

Data on employment by industry is sourced from the experimental Employee Earnings and Jobs dataset discussed in the Information Paper: Construction of Experimental Statistics on Employee Earnings and Jobs from Administrative Data, Australia, 2011-12 (cat. no. 6311.0), published by the ABS in 2015. This dataset was used to produce estimates covering numbers of jobs, earnings totals and multiple job holders. The October 2017 release of data from the 2016 Census will contain a range of employment statistics, including industry and occupation dimensions. This section also includes counts of businesses estimated according to the methodology used in Counts of Australian Businesses, including Entries and Exits (cat. no. 8165.0).

While a time series is not currently available for the Employee Earnings and Jobs dataset, this section also refers to Estimates of Personal Income for Small Areas, which includes occupation (but not industry of employment), for some insight into the shape of employment in the region over recent years. Please refer to the Methodology for a more detailed description of the distinct concepts of industry and occupation.

Table 1 shows that the largest employing industries in the GBR Region in 2011-12 were Health care and social assistance with 69,200 jobs, followed by Retail trade (68,400), then Construction (63,400).

In terms of payments to employees, Construction was the largest-paying industry, paying $2.9b. Healthcare and social assistance paid employees $2.6b and Manufacturing paid $2.5b. The highest-paying job in the region, calculated as a median, was in the Mining industry ($71,635) followed by Electricity, gas, water and waste services ($64,893) then Public administration and safety ($47,835).

The industries with the highest proportion of jobs held concurrently with other jobs were Arts and recreation services (52%), Administrative and support services (52%) and Agriculture, forestry and fisheries (50%). These industries are often associated with part time, short term or seasonal labour, and in the case of Administrative and support services, likely reflects the employment of Census workers in the 2011-12 financial year. Agriculture, forestry, and fisheries in the GBR Region had a lower share of jobs held concurrently with other jobs (50%) than Australia as a whole (55%).

Table 2 shows that compared to Queensland or Australia as a whole, the Mining, Construction and Agriculture industries were more heavily represented, with Mining contributing 9.2% of employment income in the GBR Region compared to 3.6% for total Australia.

Accommodation and food services, and Transport, postal, and warehousing were somewhat more concentrated in the region than at a national level (3.2% compared with 2.9% and 6.5% compared with 4.8%, respectively). This appears consistent with the region's status as a major tourism destination. According to the Australian National Accounts: Tourism Satellite Account (cat. no. 5249.0), on a national level these industries are the two most strongly associated with tourism activity, with 42% and 13% of total industry activity associated with tourism, respectively. For example, tourist transportation activity would be expected to be strongly concentrated in areas such as the Reef catchment. "Scenic and Sightseeing Transport" and "Water Passenger Transport" are two fine-level industry classifications (ANZSIC classes) which would cover the operation of water craft for tourists in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park for purposes such as sightseeing, transport to islands or between towns, and fishing charters.

Business counts from taxation data show that there were fewer businesses operating in the GBR Region in June 2016 than there were in June 2012, however, it is not possible to infer a decline in economic activity from this reduction in business counts. The counts of Mining businesses should be treated with particular caution due to the difficulty of classifying large multi-national corporations to particular regional areas. The Mining industry has a high prevalence of both international ties and complex business structures that makes classifying the activity of these businesses at the regional level problematic. For example, there were around 250 Mining businesses based in Brisbane City in 2016 and over 350 in Sydney - Haymarket - The Rocks, and these are likely to relate to Mining operations in other parts of Australia.

Business counts declined in most industries, with Health care and social assistance and Financial and insurance services the only industries to exhibit more than 2% growth in business counts.

Using confidentialised personal income tax estimates as an indicator of industry activity suggests that between 2010-11 and 2014-15, Graphs 1 and 2 suggest that growth in resource activities, such as the Mining and Construction industries, may have exceeded those in commercial and services in the GBR Region. Between 2010-11 and 2014-15, the number of Clerical and Administrative Workers and Sales Workers declined in the GBR Region, at comparable but slightly higher rates than the decline in Queensland overall. Incomes for Sales Workers also grew more slowly than for the entire state of Queensland. On the other hand, numbers of Labourers and Technicians and Trades Workers grew strongly, and median incomes for Machinery Operators and Drivers experienced the fastest growth.

Finer “Sub-Major” level occupation data allows the identification of more industry-specific occupation groups. Among the 43 sub-major occupation groups, Table 4 shows that several among the top ten for median income growth were in groups associated with Mining and Construction sector activity. Construction and Mining Labourers in the GBR Region experienced median income increases from $59,283 to $77,871 between 2010-11 and 2014-15. This 30% increase was the largest of any Sub-Major occupation group across the five-year period. Construction Trades Workers (25%), and Electro-technology and Telecommunications Trades Workers (23%) also experienced strong growth in median incomes over the period.

Table 5 shows that the number of employees earning income in the highest median income growth occupation groups did not generally expand alongside incomes in these occupation groups. The number of Construction and Mining Labourers, Factory Process Workers and Construction Trades Workers all declined as median incomes rose. The largest growth in numbers of employees instead occurred in Chief Executives, General Managers and Legislators (23.5%) and Health and Welfare Support Workers (23.4%) with other health and social services, and commercial sector occupation fields, also growing in number.

Overall, from 2010-11 to 2014-15, the total number of employees and the total sum earned increased at a faster rate in the GBR Region than for the state of Queensland at the start of the period, before slowing in 2014-15. Total income earned follows a similar trajectory.

Growth in earners and in income was fastest in the far northern Cape York NRM region, followed by Fitzroy and the Wet Tropics regions. Cape York and Fitzroy were the only two regions where growth in employee income exceeded that of total Queensland across the period.

Mining is not covered elsewhere in this publication as it is generally not an industry that relies on ecosystem inputs, but rather on abiotic mineral and energy resources. However, the Mining industry is reliant on ports and shipping for transport of its products, and these activities along the Reef coast benefit from substantial shore-line protection from the Reef itself. Mining is also identified in the Reef Plan 2050 as requiring management to mitigate risks to the Reef. A data gap exists in terms of systematic information on potential impacts by mining on the Reef either directly through water releases and other runoff, or indirectly through ports development and management. This will be explored in future releases.

A majority of Queensland Mining employment (55%) was located in the GBR Region in 2011-12, the only industry for which this is the case. It is a significant industry in the region’s economy, more so than in many other parts of the State. The observed concentration of this industry exists even with the exclusion of fly-in-fly-out employees who may be working within the region but living outside, an exclusion which is inherent to the taxation datasets due to the residence reported on individual tax returns.

The GBR Region represents around one quarter of the Queensland economy, containing 26% of the jobs and 26% of the gross payments to employees in Queensland. By contrast, 57% of Queensland’s Mining jobs and 55% of employee income were derived from the GBR Region in 2011-12. Queensland’s Agriculture, forestry and fisheries industry is also quite concentrated in the region, with 45% of the jobs and 48% of the employee income. Other industries with a notable concentration include Electricity, gas, water and waste (36% of employment income and job numbers), and Other services (30% of employment income and 28% of jobs). Several commercial and services industries are under represented in the GBR Region compared to Queensland, including Arts and recreation services and Professional, scientific and technical services.

A time series does not currently exist for the Employee Earnings and Jobs dataset - instead, reference can be made to small area Personal Income Tax data, which includes an occupation code, for further insight into the shape of the Mining industry's employment profile across recent years.

Some finer-level occupation codes within the ANZSCO classification are assumed to map closely with Mining industry employment. Graph 3 indicates that the period 2011-12 to 2012-13 represented a peak period for employment of Mining-related workers in the GBR Region, followed by a flattening or decline in employee numbers in these occupation groups.

Note that earnings from these Personal Income Tax data main occupations collectively equate to about 67% of all employee income earned in the GBR Region in the Mining industry in 2011-12. This means that while predominant, the coverage of the Mining Industry by reported occupations is not complete. The remaining third of Mining industry income will include; employees in other occupations working for employers within the Mining industry; secondary or non-main jobs held within the Mining industry; and misreported and inadequately reported occupation information.

All four groups show a roughly similar pattern of peak and then decline across the reference period but the timing of the peaks differed, suggesting structural shifts in Mining employment at different stages of the apparent regional Mining employment boom. Specifically, the four groups appear to peak successively across a three year period, beginning with Labourers, followed by Machinery Operators and Drivers and Professionals, then ending with Managers.

Roughly three quarters of the employees classified in the strongly Mining-related occupations Graph 3 are Drillers, Miners and Shot Firers within the Machinery Operators and Drivers major group. By 2014-15, the number of these employees in the GBR had dropped back to nearly 2010-11 levels, after rising 11% to a peak in 2012-13. Numbers of Mining Engineers (within Professionals) also peaked around 2012-13, while Mining Production Managers peaked in 2013-14 and Other Construction and Mining Labourers' numbers peaked in 2011-12 and had dropped below 2010-11 levels by 2014-15.

Investment in Reef health ensures ongoing economic benefits for Traditional Owners and partnerships with regional and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities can ensure that pressures on the Reef resulting from economic development are addressed in an effective and positive way. One of the objectives of the Department of the Environment and Energy's Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan is that Traditional Owners derive economic benefits from conservation and sustainable use of biological resources (EBO1, pg 47). This objective is supported by targets to increase the number of Traditional Owner service providers and viable businesses (EBT1, pg 47); and to increase the number of employment opportunities for Traditional Owners in sea country management and Reef-based industries (EBT2, pg 47).

According to the 2011 Census, 41% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the GBR Region aged 15 years and over were employed, compared to 62% of non-Indigenous people. This difference is explained by both a higher unemployment rate (11% compared to 3.4%) and a greater proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (43% compared to 33%) not being in the labour force (Table 1). Note that the corresponding 2016 Census data was not available at the time of publication.

Of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people employed in the GBR Region, 4% were business owners and 94% were employees in 2011. One of the specialised park ranger positions is that of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Land and Sea Ranger. In 2011, 23% of all park ranger roles were held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, highlighting the role that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people perform in sea-country management. In contrast, only 4% of the total employed population in the GBR Region is represented by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Indigenous cultural services were described in the Information Paper: An Experimental Ecosystem Account for the Great Barrier Reef Region, 2015 (cat. no. 4680.0.55.001). These were summarised into the broad categories of:

• cultural heritage: cultural practices, observances, customs and lore;
• spiritual and religious: sacred sites, sites of particular significance, and places important for cultural tradition;
• educational: stories, song lines, totems and languages;
• knowledge: Indigenous structures, technology, tools and archaeology.
   

Table 3 presents a snapshot of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' participation in cultural activities within the GBR Region. It shows that nearly two-thirds (65%) of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people within the GBR Region fished in 2014-15, highlighting the significance of the Reef ecosystem as a cultural site.

1. While the primary data source used in this section is described as an ‘Investment Baseline’, ABS discussion throughout this section refers to ‘expenditure’ rather than ‘investment’. Investment has a specific meaning in environmental-economic accounting and relates solely to spending on capital goods i.e. goods that have an ongoing use over an extended time period. Some of the expenditures contained in the Investment Baseline are current expenditures. 

Tourism activity that is dependent on ecosystems is considered to derive a "cultural ecosystem service" from nature. Some cultural services provide direct contributions to economic activity, such as tourism and recreational services. The local, non-tourism recreational use of these ecosystems is also an important feature of the amenity value of the Reef and GBR Region but is not quantified in this publication due to lack of available data.

Other cultural services are implicit in the values placed on land ownership. An example is the utility people derive from the landscape, including the value of a scenic view, or the spiritual connection of indigenous peoples to land. Many cultural services are therefore difficult to measure as exchange values. For discussion of the importance of the region's ecosystems to traditional owners, see the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples section of this publication.

This section covers both the terrestrial and marine domains of tourism activity in the GBR Region.

This publication describes tourism activity and identifies factor inputs to overall tourism activity, but does not identify a specific contribution by ecosystems to tourism in the GBR Region.

Tourism is a conventional economic activity within scope of the System of National Accounts (SNA) but is defined by consumer rather than by industry classification. Tourism activity is reported within the ABS with a Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) (Australian National Accounts: Tourism Satellite Account (cat. no. 5249.0)). Estimates in this section are derived as a regional proportion of the estimates contained within the TSA.

Intangible inputs to tourism activity (including ecosystem services inputs, but not exclusively) have been estimated through the calculation of 'tourism rent' in the terrestrial domain. Ecosystem contribution is not explicitly identified as a factor of production in the SNA or the TSA. It will instead be reflected within estimates of economic rent, which is the residual calculated after known factors of production are deducted from gross output. This residual is labelled 'tourism rent' and is analogous to the resource rent observed when businesses extract economic benefit from the ownership of assets (with the difference being that tourism-related businesses do not generally own the tourist-attracting resources). Refer to the Methodology for details on this calculation.

Estimates for the marine domain are derived from an exchange value for offshore tourism access to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The section also provides some contextual information around onshore tourism activity, such as Tourism Direct Gross Value Added and regional tourism employment.

Table 1 describes the size and economic contribution of tourism in the GBR Region over the period 2007-08 to 2015-16. The table presents estimates for aggregates such as tourism direct gross value added, direct tourism employment and direct tourism consumption.

Table 1 shows the number of visitors to the GBR Region increased from 15.2 million in 2007-08 to 17.8 million in 2015-16. This change is reflected in the value of direct tourism consumption, which increased from $8.4b to $10.0b.

Tourism rent increased from 12% to 16% of tourism GVA. This means that tourism output rose faster than the cost of human inputs such as labour, materials, produced capital and finance. In other words, tourism obtained an increasing share of value from inputs by tourism attractions, including from ecosystems. Due to the nature of economic rent with regards to tourism activity, this does not define the specific ecosystem service contribution to tourism. Non-market contributors to tourism are much wider than just ecosystems. The relationship between tourism and ecosystem services varies widely by area, such that an estimate of tourism rent does not necessarily equate to an estimate of ecosystem rent. A large share of tourist activity in the GBR Region is dependent on the region's terrestrial and marine ecosystems, very likely a much greater share than for tourism in a major urban centre. Nonetheless, tourism rent will contain more than just ecosystem services input.

Tourism employed about 46,000 people in 2015-16, and between 2010-11 and 2014-15, tourism employment averaged about 8.2% of total employment in the Great Barrier Reef Region (note that the Data Cubes of this publication contain a fuller time series than the tables of this section). This would make tourism, if counted as an industry, one of the more significant employing industries in the region. As a comparison, Education and Training jobs made up about 8.1% of total jobs in the region in 2011-12. For more context on the structure of employment and businesses by industry and occupation, refer to the Employment and Business profile section.

Table 2 shows tourism expenditure by NRM region in the GBR Region. The Wet Tropics NRM region recorded the highest tourism expenditure each year through the reference period. The Wet Tropics NRM is centred around Cairns, one of the major launching point for tours to the Great Barrier Reef, and also includes Port Douglas, another major location for tour launches. The Great Barrier Reef is quite close to the shoreline in this part of the catchment compared to further south. In addition to the Reef, this region includes the World Heritage listed Wet Tropical Rainforests.

Visitors made longer trips (an average of 3 nights per visitor) with greater expenditure per trip than to NRM regions further south. Wet Tropics NRM region receives over three times as many international visitors as any other NRM region. All of this paints a picture of the Wet Tropics region as an area attracting higher expenditure than in other NRM regions with comparable or greater numbers of total visitors, thanks in part to its positioning as a well-known destination specifically for ecosystem related attractions.

The fastest growth in tourism expenditure (36%) was in the Burdekin region, in which is located the GBR region's largest city, Townsville. However in contrast to the Wet Tropics region centred around Cairns, the Burdekin NRM region receives far fewer international visitors and Townsville receives far fewer visitors than Cairns who stay in hotels rather than with friends or family.

Table 2 shows that tourism expenditure in the Mackay Whitsunday region declined by 4.4% in current prices terms between 2007-08 and 2015-16, and the fuller time series available in Data Cubes also shows a decline of 19% from peaks in 2009-10 and 2012-13. This decline has been driven by domestic visitors, as international visitor expenditure continued to grow. As shown in Table 3 below, visitor numbers fell from 1.8 million in 2007-08 and 2.0 million in the 2009-10 peak, to 1.7 million in 2015-16. In addition, the average nights spent in the region per visitor fell from 3.1 to 2.7.