Cosmos Country: Managing Australia's coastal bays and estuaries

Water quality is a growing problem. And it’s not just about your local dam or the River Murray. Australia’s coastal bays and estuaries are important on many levels.

They’re great places to live.

They’re fantastic places to visit.

They’re critical links in fishing ecosystems.

And they’re increasingly important for aquaculture industries such as salmon, tuna and oysters.

Cosmos Country speaks to two people striving to ensure these ecological and economical hotspots survive and thrive. They’re conducting a study into South Australia’s exotic Coffin Bay – tracking the health of fresh water, nutrients, microbes, fish, shellfish and seagrasses and the impact each is having on the bay’s fragile balance. And they hope to use this to create a template for assessing the health of similar locations around the country.

Professor Adrian Werner is a Flinders University hydrogeologist specialising in the interaction of surface and subsurface water sources. Professor Sabine Dittmann, also of Flinders, is an expert on coastal ecosystems.

They spoke to Cosmos Country’s podcast hosts Jamie Seidel and Marie Low.