Effective management of soil water requires a knowledge of its status as well as an interpretation of how its status should affect management decisions. Lack of both of these has limited landholders’ ability to manage soil water in the past.
Airborne sensors can be used by natural resource managers and researchers to collect visible (vegetation cover) and invisible (such as canopy condition or water use) data.
Anthropogenic impacts on groundwater sources such as over-pumping, artificial recharge and/or mining can facilitate hydrogeochemical changes in the aquifer that may lead to accumulation/mobilisation of acidity and/or trace metals. To assess the fate of these trace metals and the effectiveness of remediation measures, the interaction between physical, chemical and reactive processes that control the generation and attenuation of acidity and/or trace metals in the aquifer needs to be understood. (more)...
Building capability to assess the condition of Australia's natural resources
This report describes the achievements of the second phase (2002-2008) of the National Land and Water Resources Audit, the challenges faced and the lessons for the future based on the Audit experience.
The report is structured in four main parts
The introduction
The operating context and objective
Tasks and achievements, and
The experience, gaps and ways forward.
Also presented are acknowledgements to the many parties that have assisted in what has (more)...
This report - Ecological Risk Assessment Case Study for the Lower Loddon Catchment: Bayesian decision network model for predicting grey-crowned babbler population abundance in the Lower Loddon catchment - is the fourth in a series of five produced by…
This report is the third in a series of five produced by NPSI project UMO45 Delivering Sustainability through Risk Management. Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA) is a formal process for determining the risk posed by hazards (stressors, threats) to the health of ecosystems.
ERA evolved from the need to develop processes that better deal with the complexity of aquatic ecosystems. That is, the (more)...
This report - Ecological Risk Assessment Case Study for the Murray Irrigation Region - is the second in a series of five produced by NPSI project UMO45 Delivering Sustainability through Risk Management.
An ecological risk assessment (ERA) was undertaken in the Murray irrigation region in southern NSW to assess the risks to the ecological values (or assets) from irrigation and other (more)...
Although Ecological Risk Assessment (ERA) can provide a basis for making the vague tenets of sustainability operationally meaningful, the capacity for its adoption among irrigation industries and stakeholders is unproven. This report details insights in the adoption process afforded through delivery of nine ERA awareness workshops delivered in irrigation regions throughout Australia.
As a result of improved irrigation management and systems, growers in the Lower Murray (Riverland-Sunraysia) horticultural region have improved their water use efficiency (WUE) over the past two decades from about 50% to about 80%. However a negative consequence of this achievement is the emerging risk of salinity build-up in the root zone, threatening the sustainability of the region (Biswas et al. 2005a; Biswas et al. 2005b). The amount of irrigation applied must account for (more)...
