The effect of the Daintree River flood plume on Snapper Island coral reefs

Abstract

Surveys of fringing reefs were conducted in the Cairns region in early 1995. The reef slope of these reefs supported rich coral communities with mean coral cover of around 80%. The reefs around Snapper Island were particularly rich at this time with 88% cover recorded on the north face of the Island and 88.3% on the south. This small, narrow island is only about two kilometres long from west tip to east lip and lies about 75 kilometres north of Cairns and only five kilometres east of the Daintree River mouth.