C3 Seminar: Katherine Dafforn

Topic: Stress responses to land-based discharges in urban waterways 

Australia’s coast is of enormous economic, social and ecological value. Soft sediments are the dominant seafloor habitat and play major roles in global cycles. They are exposed to multiple stressors such as legacy contaminants in sediments and ongoing inputs of nutrients and metals via stormwater. I will present the results from two studies that link ecological change to human impacts along the coast.  Firstly, a large-scale study of ten NSW estuaries, which aimed to develop biomonitoring tools that would be sensitive to human impacts above and beyond changes to natural environmental conditions. Secondly, a study of stormwater impacts within Sydney Harbour, which aimed to link changes in ecosystem structure to function. The results have implications for future biomonitoring and management of human impacts in estuaries and increase our understanding of how to conserve crucial estuarine community diversity and function.

About the speaker

Katherine Dafforn

Katie is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Macquarie University and Deputy Director for the Sydney Harbour Research Program at SIMS. Katie’s research explores human impacts on marine communities and she has been investigating marine life in NSW estuaries for over 10 years.

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Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.