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Final Report

Trial provision of an independent advisory service to assist regional NRM bodies select decision making approaches

This project, entitled “Trial provision of an independent advisory service to assist regional NRM bodies select decision making approaches” was intended to support Land & Water Australia’s Knowledge for Regional NRM Program. This program is designed to improve access to decision making approaches by NRM bodies across Australia. The Advisory Team for this Trial was made up of (more)...

Modelling Microbial Utilisation of Macrophyte Organic Matter Inputs to Rivers under Different Flow Conditions

The timing and composition of organic matter (OM) inputs to rivers are important as carbon plays a major role in river functioning. Management of Australian rivers since European settlement has altered inputs of organic matter to these systems. Heterotrophic microbes play a critical role in the transformation of OM in rivers, allowing transfer of carbon to other biota. Alteration to the proportions of OM from different (more)...

Innovative techniques for managing multiple threats to high value aquatic systems

This four-year multidisciplinary R&D project, supported by a range of agencies and organisations leveraged off core funding by Land & Water Australia, aimed to rehabilitate Dowd Morass, a 1,500 ha Ramsar-listed wetland fringing Lake Wellington (Gippsland Lakes, south-eastern Victoria).  A substantial component of the R&D project involved the landscape-scale manipulation of water regimes using as BACI-type experimental design.  (more)...

Algal availability of phosphorus discharged from different catchment sources

Algal Management Strategies, Nutrient Management Strategies and Catchment Management Plans frequently have as a major focus the reduction of phosphorus loads to surface waters. The expressed intention of the nutrient control is to reduce the frequency and intensity of algal blooms, particularly blooms of toxic cyanobacteria. In many instances a direct link between the magnitude of algal blooms and phosphorus loads has not been demonstrated. However, there is appreciable information in the scientific (more)...

Sources and Delivery of Suspended Sediment and Phosphorus to Australian Rivers

“Combining tracers and landscape modelling to predict sediment and phosphorus from different landuses and erosion processes.” Sedimentation in streams and rivers draining agricultural land has resulted in severe environmental degradation. Eutrophication is a major associated issue, and the persistent occurrence of algal blooms has been linked with excess available P. The total amount of P in these systems has been shown to be dominated by the sediment bound load derived from erosion (more)...

Repair and replacement options for concrete lined irrigation channels

This package contains guidelines for repairing or replacing concrete lined irrigation channels.

To use, download the package and start by opening “Main_home.pdf”.

Adobe Acrobat is required to use this document.

  • Guides and Manuals
    Final Report
  • Product code PN30293
  • National Program for Sustainable Irrigation
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Catchment assessment techniques to help determine priorities in river restoration

The intent is for the assessment techniques described to provide an improved rational basis for setting stream rehabilitation priorities. Focus catchments were chosen that had issues aligned with those in the project objectives. Two existing assessment techniques; SedNet (Prosser et al., 2001) and RARC (Jansen et al., 2004a), were selected to be developed for regional scale priority setting, based on the project team’s expertise with these techniques. These techniques were (more)...

Hydrological effects of floodgate management on coastal floodplain agriculture

Extensive drainage systems have been constructed on coastal floodplains to mitigate the effects of floods and to enable the development of agricultural industries. They have also greatly increased the rate of acidity entering creeks and estuaries from acid sulfate soils, resulted in a loss of fish breeding habitats and led to changes in the vegetation composition of backswamps. Coastal drains usually have floodgates which prevent tidal inundation of backswamps and reduce the ingress of saline water (more)...

SIGNAL scoring system for river bio-assessment by community groups

SIGNAL stands for ‘Stream Invertebrate Grade Number – Average Level.’ It is a simple scoring system for macro-invertebrate (‘water bug’) samples from Australian rivers. A SIGNAL score gives an indication of water quality in the river from which the sample was collected. Rivers with high SIGNAL scores are likely to have low levels of salinity, turbidity and nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. They (more)...

Water Quality History of Murrumbidgee River Floodplain Wetlands

The condition of floodplain wetlands is a function of internal and external forces and functions. Wetlands vary longitudinally down a floodplain following principals enshrined in the River Continuum Concept whereby the nature and concentration of solutes and sediments change with distance from source. This observation pertains directly to the main river channels but influences the wetland mostly in times of flood as,during low flow,connection between the river and the wetland may be severed. (more)...

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