Innovative Engineering

Innovative engineering is vital to ensure that structures built for the reef are designed to ensure that they can withstand extreme weather and that their environmental impact is negligable. Innovative engineering also ensures that their design is cost-effective.

Engineers working with CRC Reef have developed an atlas of wave conditions expected under cyclonic conditions for the entire Great Barrier Reef, which is now available online and a set of guidelines for developing and installing tourist pontoons in Great Barrier Reef (GBR) waters. These outputs will aid managers and industry considerably in choosing sites to place pontoons and the streamlining their installation. Other projects include hydrodynamic modelling of coastal ports, which will give port managers better information with which to control events such as pollutant spills, and manage activities such as dredging of shipping channels.

CRC Reef researchers have also been involved in extensive modelling and field studies of the feasibility of using island resort wastewater as irrigation to reduce the flow of wastewater nitrogen from islands into surrounding GBR waters. The results show that wastewater irrigation can reduce substantially nitrogen discharges into reef environments, though the amount of reduction depends on the soil and water table characteristics of each island. Again, this a great example of good research pointing the way to efficient and environmentally friendly solutions to potential problems arising from human use of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area (GBRWHA).

CRC Reef engineering research tasks