Case Study: Cairns Regional Council improves Great Barrier Reef water quality monitoring with Aquatic Informatics AQUARIUS

Reducing Urban Environmental Impacts on the Great Barrier Reef by Efficiently Monitoring, Analysing and Sharing Data with all Stakeholders

Cairns Regional Council faced the challenge of understanding and reducing urban water pollution impacting the Great Barrier Reef. During storm events, runoff and sewer overflows degraded water quality in the Saltwater Creek catchment. The council needed a robust analytics solution to manage vast amounts of real-time sensor and lab data to turn it into actionable intelligence for improving infrastructure and treatment processes. They collaborated with vendor Aquatic Informatics to address this.

Aquatic Informatics implemented its AQUARIUS platform to manage and analyze the water quality data. The solution delivers real-time data, sends automated alerts to stakeholders, and shares information with the public through an easy-to-use web portal. This provided Cairns Regional Council with evidence-based decision-making tools, improved data integrity, and reduced the internal IT burden through a cloud-based system. The results include an informed community, calibrated environmental models, and a shared commitment to protecting the local waterways and the Great Barrier Reef.

Cairns Regional Council

Lynne Powell

Strategic Policy and Compliance Coordinator