Assessment and Promotion of the Great Barrier Reef's Human Dimensions Through Collaboration

Increasingly, natural resource managers see the marine protected areas that they are responsible for as linked social-ecological systems. This requires an equal focus on managing for both natural and human dimensions of the protected estate. Consequently, identification of indicators that represent the human dimensions of Large Scale Marine Protected Areas (LSMPAs) such as the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is critical if these values are to be properly considered as part of standard management practice. Assessment and monitoring of the human dimensions of LSMPAs requires a replicable, collaborative process, rolled out at local scales but comparable across vast, socially and geographically diverse areas. This paper explores the application of a process for the development, assessment, and monitoring of the GBR's human dimensions. The process includes (a) development of a conceptual framework that links indicator sets to the desired state of the GBR's human dimensions; and (b) a collaborative approach including ten practical steps to implement assessment, monitoring, and benchmarking of the human dimensions of an LSMPA. We conclude with examination of challenges and opportunities for implementing this process in the GBR context, specifically with respect to the targets and objectives of the Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan.     

Information Presentation of Coastal Morphological Change: Potential Implications for Perceptions of Climate Change Impacts

Visual imagery of costal morphological change processes must be accompanied by supporting information to make change processes understandable. We explored the influence of supporting information (graphs and numeric values) on perceptions of coastal morphological change processes through an experiment delivered to coastal recreationists. Supporting information was presented alongside four imagery types: human perspective digital elevation models (DEMs), human perspective digital photographs, aerial views of DEMs and aerial photography. We found neither the use of graphs nor numeric values influenced respondents' perceptions of coastal environmental change. However, perceptions varied significantly across imagery type; human perspective digital photographs and aerial photographs yielded higher ratings compared to human perspective DEMs and aerial views of DEMs. The results suggest supporting information representing increasingly severe rates of beach erosion and shoreline movement does not translate into perceptions of increasingly dramatic geophysical processes; this is consistent with previous empirical findings. The results also suggest individuals perceive coastal change processes as more severe when those processes are presented through photographs, particularly aerial photographs. Scientists, educators and coastal land use managers struggling to communicate the magnitude and severity associated with coastal geophysical processes are advised to use comparative aerial photography when possible.