Peter J Mumby, Robert Mason, Yves-Marie Bozec, Karlo Hock, Juan-Carlos Ortiz, Ken Anthony, Roger Beeden, Matthew Adams, Mark Baird, and Scott Condie

The average state of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is declining through a combination of acute impacts and chronic stressors that serve to reduce the recovery rates of reefs. A management challenge is to strengthen the resilience of the reef through tactical and strategic actions targeted at near-optimal locations and times. Here, we describe an approach to develop a Resilience-based Management Guidance System. The approach attempts to synthesize the great diversity of scientific knowledge and data in order to compare the outcomes of alternative management strategies. In practice, this involves combining empirical data on reef state, ecosystem models, biological models, eReefs, connectivity and the anticipated impacts of various management tools. The guidance system will be realised as a standalone computer software and be able to project the state of the reef under different scenarios, allow managers to estimate the outcomes of selected management measures, and identify near-optimal combinations of management to achieve stated outcomes. We demonstrate some early progress on the project and outline our concept for further development.

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