Environmental Assessments
With environmental experts across a variety of fields, the Blue Carbon Lab has the technical expertise to produce a wide range of environmental assessments. We can identify the potential environmental and/or social risks involved with a project and make suggestions for strategies to avoid or mitigate these impacts. We use evidence-based, balanced frameworks to make our assessments, ensuring that the results are independent and unbiased.
In addition to project-based assessments, we can also evaluate programs for their efficacy and outcomes. For instance, we have evaluated marine parks to determine how they have benefitted the health of key ecosystems.
We have worked with stakeholders across industry, government, and academia in our environmental assessments. Community consultation is also an important component of many project assessments, and we have experience communicating project goals and brokering positive exchanges between clients and the broader community.
Desktop methods
– Literature review
– Case studies
– Data analyses
– Impact and risk quantification
Field-based methods
– Site surveys and monitoring
– Environmental sampling and analysis
– Stakeholder and community engagement
Case Study: Point Addis
Parks Victoria engaged Deakin University as part of the Research Partners Panel Program to trial a suite of monitoring approaches in Point Addis Marine National Park. This represents one of 13 Marine National Parks managed by Parks Victoria, capturing the diversity of Victoria’s marine environment, habitats, flora and fauna. In order to reliably manage these areas, an understanding of the natural values that occur within the parks is essential.
The results from this environmental assessment provided considerable new knowledge of the distribution and functioning of intertidal, subtidal and mesophotic habitats within Point Addis Marine National Park and a framework to expand monitoring across National Parks.
Furthermore, control charts were developed as part of this assessment that were used to inform management decisions in the Marine National Park.
Project partners
Research was led by the Marine Mapping Group at Deakin University, with support provided by the Blue Carbon Lab as well as the University of Melbourne and Parks Victoria.
