Community-derived indicator domains for social resilience to water quality decline in a Great Barrier Reef catchment, Australia

Abstract

Catchment-derived pollution of the Great Barrier Reef, Australia, is instigating the development of novel policy, including community assessments and monitoring of their own resilience to water quality decline. This article explores community perspectives of social resilience to changing water quality in local waterways, and potential indicator domains for framing community-derived indicators. In a regional case study in northern Australia, we interviewed knowledgeable individuals with a specific interest in water quality management to elicit their understandings of social resilience in relation to water quality change. From their responses we identified 18 domains for the future development of indicators to be applied in the catchment. These included large social networks, numbers of stewardship volunteers, and cross-scale government–community partnerships. We discuss the utility of our results for targeting investment by policymakers to promote community adaptive capacity to water quality decline in the Townsville catchment.