# Capture — land-based run-off

- **Claim filed:** “Land-based run-off remains the greatest contributor to poor water quality in the inshore areas of the Great Barrier Reef…”
- **Who:** Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
- **URL:** https://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/learn/threats/declining-water-quality
- **Date on page:** position statement 17 February 2021; page captured 2026-08-14
- **Publisher:** GBRMPA
- **Title:** Declining water quality
- **Captured:** 2026-08-14
- **Method:** saved HTML (`gbr-wq.html`)

## Verbatim (Reef Authority)

> Land-based run-off remains the greatest contributor to poor water quality in the inshore areas of the Great Barrier Reef and is a major contributor to the current poor state of many inshore marine ecosystems.

> Poor water quality is a major threat to the Great Barrier Reef, particularly…

Pollutants listed: fine sediment, excess nutrients, pesticides — “primarily from agricultural activities.”

Plibersek, 25 July 2024 (on the fishing card’s `plibersek.html`): $200 million for revegetation, grazing management, gully stabilisation — water quality as a UNESCO pillar.

## The other meter — Senate

`senate-ridd.html`  
Ridd and Larcombe:

> the resuspension of sediment during and after cyclone events, which are far more destructive to the Reef than agricultural practices.

Ridd on COTS at Swains:

> 150 km from the coast and ‘completely unaffected by runoff from the land’.

> COTS are a native species and evidence has shown COTS populations have reached plague proportions prior to European settlement.

The Authority’s own hedge is “inshore areas.” Mid- and outer-shelf cover highs (AIMS 2022, 2026) sit outside that sentence.

## What this file does not do

It does not file “mud never hurt a coral.” It files a farm ranking against the larger cyclone pulse and an offshore starfish the river does not reach.