Sydney Institute of Marine Science
About Sydney Institute of Marine Science
Background
The Sydney Institute of Marine Science, founded in 2005 and located on Chowder Bay in Sydney Harbour, is a world-leading marine science institute and the principal marine research facility in NSW.
The Sydney Institute of Marine Science is a partnership between Macquarie University, the University of NSW, the University of Sydney and the University of Technology, Sydney. The partnership is enhanced by collaborations with several state and federal government departments, and the Australian Museum. SIMS has over 100 scientists and graduate students associated with the Institute, representing a broad diversity of skills in marine science.
SIMS is a unique focal point for collaborative marine research and innovation, provision of marine research for policy makers and managers, and research training and teaching in the marine sciences.
SIMS sits in the middle of Australia’s largest city – a city of over 5 million people. It also sits on a coastline that is bathed by the East Australian Current, making Sydney and the coast of New South Wales a global hotspot for ocean warming. SIMS’ unique location makes it the ideal place from which to address the combined impacts of urbanisation and climate change, two of the central challenges facing coastal sustainability today. Beyond Sydney and NSW, management and rehabilitation of our coasts and oceans in the context of urban development and a changing environment is a global issue, and SIMS scientists work across the world to share understanding and expertise on the marine environment
SIMS research is solution focused, resulting in novel approaches and technologies for enhancing our sustainable use and enjoyment of the marine environment now and into the future.
Articles by Sydney Institute of Marine Science
Operation Crayweed
Crayweeds are a type of seaweed in Sydney harbour and surrounds that are like ecological foundations in our marine environment. If you take that away, everything else goes. If you bring that back, then everything else comes back with it. That is the goal of operation Crayweed.
Restoring Sydney Harbour’s seagrass
This unique marine restoration project is working to restore Sydney Harbour's beautiful seagrass meadows - crucial habitat for marine biodiversity
Sydney Harbour’s marine life makes a comeback
The marine life of the Sydney Harbour got to a low in the 1960s and 1970s, but we've seen an improvement in the last 50 years, with a growing abundance of marine life in the harbour.
Saving White’s Seahorse
An incredible project in the heart of Sydney harbour aims to save one of the world's two endangered species of Seahorse - the beautiful, tiny, White's seahorse.
Living Seawalls for Sydney Harbour
In Sydney Harbour, certainly upriver, nearly 100% of the natural shoreline has been transformed to artificial shorelines. This remarkable restoration project seeks to bring natural shoreline and marine biodiversity back
Project Restore: Bringing marine life back into Sydney Harbour
Project restore is a leader globally in moving beyond habitat-by-habitat marine restoration to provide an example of how multi-habitat restoration can be conducted at seascape scale.
Sydney Harbour – a river valley flooded in the last ice age
What is now Sydney Harbour, 12,000 years ago was a river valley that was drowned. Water flooded in and the sea level rose 120 metres
Restoring urchin barrens in Sydney Harbour
Sea-urchins have over-adapted to urbanisation and their proliferation is causing urchin 'barrens', areas devoid of kelp and seaweed. A project is tackling this by removing urchins, enabling areas of kelp forest to be restored
Sydney Harbour’s extraordinary marine biodiversity
In and around Sydney Harbour, we have over 600 unique species of fish. To put that in context, that's the same biodiversity as the entirety of the European continent.