Can we discern trends in the annual Pesticide Risk Metric data published by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority Monitoring Program?

Theme: Environmental Management

Description: 

Taucare et al. (2022) published a trend analysis of the photosystem II (PSII) herbicide concentration data published by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority Monitoring Program (MMP).  That study described statistically significant increases in some PSII herbicides at some MMP sites.

More recently, the 2022 Scientific Consensus Statement (Negri et al. 2024) has called for an analysis of the trends in MMP data using the Pesticide Risk Metric. The Pesticide Risk Metric includes risk from 22 pesticides, including two insecticides, nine PSII herbicides and ten other herbicides, including metolachlor and MCPA – the herbicides that dominated pesticide risk at several MMP sites.

This project could specifically include a trend analysis for metolachlor. This project would require the calculation of pesticide risk metrics for MMP datasets available back to 2005 and the application of statistical tests. This project will suit a student interested in building statistical models of environmental datasets.

Additional Information: 

The Michael St John Warne (1962 – 2024) Memorial Scholarship is administered by the Reef Catchments Science Partnership in the School of the Environment. The purpose of the scholarship is to support UQ honours students. Up to three (3) scholarships will be awarded. Each scholarship is worth $5,000 (half paid in February 2026 and half paid on submission of thesis). A top up writing scholarship of $1,000 is available to publish one (1) journal paper from your thesis research after submission.
See https://environment.uq.edu.au/michael-st-john-warne-memorial-scholarship for more information or email rcsp.info@uq.edu.au

Contact: Assoc. Prof. Ryan Turner