Monitoring diffuse impacts: Australian tourism developments

The scientific quality of monitoring for diffuse environmental impacts has rarely been quantified. This paper presents an analysis of all formal envir onmental monitoring programs for Australian tourism developments over a 15- year period from 1980 to 1995. The tourism sector provides a good test bed for this study because tourism developments are (1) often adjacent to or ev en within conservation reserves and other relatively undisturbed natural en vironments, and (2) often clustered, with resulting cumulative impacts that require detection at an early stage. Here we analyze the precision and rel iability with which monitoring programs as actually implemented can detect diffuse environmental impacts against natural variation. Of 175 Australian tourism developments subject to EIA from 1980 to 1993 inclusive, only 13 we re subject to formal monitoring. Only 44 individual parameters, in total, w ere monitored for all these developments together. No baseline monitoring w as conducted for nine of the 44 parameters. For the remaining 35, only one was monitored for a full year. Before, after, control, impact, paired sampl ing (BACIP) monitoring designs were used for 24 of the 44 parameters, and p ower analysis in 10. The scientific quality of monitoring was significantly better for developments subject to control by the Great Barrier Reef Marin e Park Authority (GBRMPA). The key factor appears to be the way in which GB RMPA uses external referees and manages external consultants. The GBRMPA mo del merits wider adoption.