{"id":785759,"date":"2026-07-07T23:25:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T23:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/785759\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T23:25:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T23:25:16","slug":"great-barrier-reefs-long-term-monitoring-program-celebrates-40-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/785759\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Barrier Reef’s long-term monitoring program celebrates 40 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daniela Ceccarelli is clinging to a rope with her hands above her head as she whizzes through the water, trying to count as many fish and coral as she can.<\/p>\n

Every two minutes, the boat towing her pauses so Dr Ceccarelli can jot down her observations with a waterproof pencil on waterproof paper.<\/p>\n

Then she’s off again, soaring underwater in a research method known as a “manta tow”.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Daniela Ceccarelli on a manta tow trip, which she says is a highlight of her job. (Supplied: AIMS)<\/p>\n

The manta tows are designed to provide a quick broadscale check of reef health, tracking bleaching, coral cover, crown-of-thorns starfish or even the number of coral trout.<\/p>\n

“It really does feel like flying when you’re getting pulled along underwater,” Dr Ceccarelli said.<\/p>\n

“We do tow in rough weather sometimes, so it can be fun to get a barrel while you’re on a manta tow.”<\/p>\n

Dr Ceccarelli has had a fish-eye view of hundreds of different areas that make up the Great Barrier Reef.<\/p>\n

She has seen its sheltered sides, the sandy lagoons and the steep-walled reef front.<\/p>\n

\"Someone<\/p>\n

Manta tows like this have been carried out on the reef for 40 years. (Supplied: AIMS)<\/p>\n

Sometimes, she is surrounded by dolphins, whales or false killer whales.<\/p>\n

And once, in a bizarre incident, she watched an octopus punch a fish.<\/p>\n

A 40-year-old data set<\/p>\n

These unusual counting trips form a vital part of the Australian Institute of Marine Science’s (AIMS) long-term monitoring program of the reef, with the group marking 40 years of data collection.<\/p>\n

The dataset includes information from manta tows on 490 parts of the Great Barrier Reef.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

The team performs the monitoring process in all sorts of weather, including these rough seas in 2008. (Supplied: AIMS)<\/p>\n

The monitoring program also includes detailed scuba surveys identifying the size and number of species.<\/p>\n

Dr Ceccarelli has completed about 3,000 of these manta tows in five years and said the monitoring program was “legendary” among educators as the “gold standard of coral reef management”.<\/p>\n

The public database has details down to the results of each manta tow.<\/p>\n

\"Someone<\/p>\n

The data from every single manta tow is included in an online database tracking the reef’s health. (Supplied: AIMS: Michelle Jonker)<\/p>\n

Dr Ceccarelli said she was regularly asked how the reef was doing, and now people can see for themselves.<\/p>\n

“We answer this through this dashboard,” she said.<\/p>\n

“You can drill down to each part of the reef and see how it’s faring.”<\/p>\n

Assessing government policies<\/p>\n

The program began after the second crown-of-thorns outbreak on the reef.<\/p>\n

Team lead Mike Emslie said the monitoring was considered novel at the time.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Mike Emslie says the monitoring program has proven its worth time and time again. (ABC News: James Tugwell)<\/p>\n

“It was pretty pioneering, particularly on the scale of the Great Barrier Reef,” he said.<\/p>\n

Now, Dr Emslie said it was likely the longest continual monitoring of a coral reef in the world and it was important the manta tow approach remained constant.<\/p>\n

“The point is that how we collect the data doesn’t change,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It gives you the ability to be able to go back in time and see how things have been affected.”\"Scuba<\/p>\n

The monitoring program also includes more detailed inspections carried out by scuba divers. (Supplied: AIMS)<\/p>\n

He said the dataset allowed for analysis of government policies and decisions.<\/p>\n

For example, Dr Emslie said the dataset showed the “big and controversial move at the time” of introducing no-fishing green zones in 2004 was effective for biodiversity conservation.<\/p>\n

The data also showed the “amazing recovery” of coral after the 2016\/17 bleaching event.<\/p>\n

“Without the data set, we wouldn’t have the information to be able to assess federal government plans in terms of sustainability,” he said.<\/p>\n

“This program has shown its worth time and time again.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniela Ceccarelli is clinging to a rope with her hands above her head as she whizzes through the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":785760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[18734,64,63,19310,371090,371087,75,1044,371089,371086,371088,26673,128,6649],"class_list":["post-785759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-aims","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-institute-of-marine-science","tag-daniela-ceccarelli","tag-dr-daniela-ceccarelli","tag-environment","tag-great-barrier-reef","tag-long-term-monitoring-program","tag-manta-tow","tag-mike-emslie","tag-north-queensland","tag-science","tag-townsville"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/785760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}