Oceanica provides high quality services in environmental auditing and performance and compliance reporting. Auditing and reporting is undertaken against regulatory and proponent requirements, including

• Environmental Conditions specified by State or Federal Ministerial Statements;
• Works Approval and/or Licence conditions;
• Sea Dumping Permits;
• ISO 14001 Environmental Management System requirements;
• Environmental Management Plan commitments.

Oceanica personnel with particular expertise in conducting environmental audits include Sarah Scott, Dr Karen Crawley and Dr Robert De Roach. Sarah and Karen are environmental auditors accredited with the certifying body RABQSA International (Sarah as a lead auditor) and both were previously employed by the audit section at the Department of Environment and Conservation.  Robert has experience in Works Approval auditing and Phase 1 Environmental Site Assessments for commercial purposes of due diligence.

Oceanica's experienced staff regularly provide high level advice and independent peer review to government and industry on environmental policy, programmes, guidelines and other documents.

Provision of unbiased advice through desktop technical study or literature review of marine and coastal issues that are of relevance to our clients, no matter how obscure or complex, is a regular focus of Oceanica's highly analytical yet pragmatic staff.

Further, Oceanica is highly experienced in providing State of the Environment (or Pressure-State-Response) reporting that is both in line with regional, state and national frameworks, and based on the effective development and utilisation of relevant environmental indicators and targets.

Oceanica's staff have great technical expertise in delivering well-designed, cost-effective and efficiently-executed field monitoring programmes.  This work is supported by a comprehensive inventory of specialist equipment for marine sampling, mapping and analysis.

The importance of programme design can never be underestimated and we use all tools at our disposal (e.g. biostatistical design, hydrodynamic modelling, deployment of purpose-specific loggers or bio-accumulators such as mussels etc.) to ensure that any programme is designed to best address the areas of environmental concern.

Services offered include the design and implementation of water quality monitoring programmes, sediment quality monitoring programmes, sampling and analysis protocols for human health, physical water characteristics, nutrient related impacts, contaminant issues (including acid sulphate soils) or resource management.  We also design extensive Whole Effluent Toxicity (WET) testing programs in accordance with National guidelines with subsequent interpretation of outcomes.

Oceanica has strong skills in benthic habitat health assessment and mapping, particularly in temperate regions.  Oceanica has vast experience in working with the Environmental Protection Authority's Benthic Primary Producer Habitat Guideance Statements (most recently documented in Environmental Assessment Guideline No. 3) as well as researching indicators of benthic health for a variety of marine biota.  Our staff have been at the forefront of developing techniques for mapping benthic habitat from purpose-flown imagery and are continually looking to improve quality and methods in this area.