Assessment of ecological risks associated with irrigation in the Goulburn Broken Catchment

Product Information

The National Program for Irrigation Research and Development (NPIRD) has established a research project to develop and test a generic framework for assessing the ecological risks associated with irrigation systems. The framework development and partial testing will be informed by case studies in three irrigation systems, the Goulburn-Broken (Victoria), the Ord (Western Australia) and the Fitzroy (Queensland).

Each case study is to be implemented in three phases:

1. Problem formulation phase - identify likely ecological risks associated with irrigation systems and what is known about these risks;
2. Investigation phase - undertake specific studies to gather specific information required to complete the detailed ERA in phase 3;
3. Detailed ecological risk assessment.

This report provides the finding of Phase 1 for the Goulburn-Broken irrigation area.