ensuring the wise use of australia’s tropical rivers and wetlands benchmarking northern...
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Ensuring the wise use of Australia’s tropical rivers and wetlands
Benchmarking Northern Australia’s Tropical Rivers Before Further Degradation: Practical Approaches
& Constraints
Max Finlayson, George Lukacs, John Lowry, Rick van Dam, Renee Bartolo & Rudolf De Groot
International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka; Environmental Research Institute of the Supervising Scientist, Darwin, Australia; James Cook University, Townsville, Australia;Wageningen
University, Wageningen, The Netherlands
A Project of the National Rivers Consortium
Aim & ObjectivesAim: to better inform natural resource managers and
decision-makers about the status of the rivers and wetlands in northern (tropical) Australia
Objectives: provide an information base for determining management priorities
1. undertake (collate) a multiple-scale inventory of the habitats and biota of the rivers and wetlands
2. undertake risk assessments of the major pressures on the habitats and biota of the rivers and wetlands
3. develop and test a framework for analysis of the ecosystem services (e.g. provision of water for multiple uses), provided by the rivers and wetlands of northern Australia
Practical Approaches & ConstraintsConstraints:
- information base is fragmented, and/or inaccessible, and insufficient for addressing management needs
- research/assessment capacity is limited, centralised and bureaucratic and/or academic
- local communities and indigenous people often not effectively engaged and/or empowered
- driven largely be agendas from southern Australia
Practical Approaches:
- invest in ongoing stakeholder relationships
- recognise, share and exchange information from multiple sources
- make better use of and identify weaknesses in existing data
- use (and improve) proven structured data collation and analytical approaches
Tropical Rivers Project Area
Land & Water Australia (2004)
FOCAL CATCHMENTS
Fitzroy (WA)
Daly (NT)
Flinders (Qld)
51 catchments1,190,973 km2
3 focus catchments – Fitzroy, Daly & Flinders
Integrated framework for wetland inventory, assessment and monitoring at multiple-scales.
Inventory MonitoringAssessment
Environmental Impact Assessment
Strategic Environmental Assessment
Risk Assessment
Rapid Assessment
Economic ValuationVulnerability Assessment
Broad-scale Broad-scale
Detailed
An integrated information base (inventory):
Built upon: consultation – involvement and recognition of
multiple knowledge sources sharing/exchange and analysis of existing
information, and specific investigations to provide further data
As a reference for assessing change in the ecological character of the rivers/wetlands (habitats, species, and the ecosystem services they provide)
Inventory of the biological, chemical and physical features of rivers/wetlands1. Consultation (ongoing)
2. Mapping:— includes 1:250 k across northern Australia— finer scales for focal catchments (1:100 k – 1:50 k)
3. Collate existing river-reach attribute data for GIS (geomorphology, water quality, hydrology, vegetation, birds, fish, invertebrates, reptiles and amphibians)
4. Determine classification for ecological characterisation and inventory of rivers, and extrapolate to GIS
5. Ground-truthing and sampling regimes for focal catchments (where identified and necessary)
6. Reporting
Location of gauging stations within the Daly river catchment with at least 20 y of complete annual flow data.
0 100 200 300 400
Mean annual runoff (m m )
G 8140001
G 8140008
G 8140152
G 8140040
G 8140158
G 8140161
G 8140067
G 8140063
G 8140151
G 8140068
G 8140044
G 8140011
0 0.5 1 1.5 2
C oeffic ient of variation
G 8140159
Inter-annual variability of runoff (Left) and mean annual runoff (Right) of the streams within the Daly river catchment area.
Broad scale classification
Focus-catchment scale classification
Bedrock channel Bedrock channel
Bedrock confined Bedrock-confined
Alluvial Low sinuosity rivers
Meandering rivers
Floodouts
Multiple channel rivers
Wandering channel rivers
Lake / swamp Non-channelised
Swamp / waterbody dominated zone
Estuarine Tidal
Assessment of major pressures on rivers/wetlands
1. Within selected major catchments and at important sites
2. Collation of information on pressures (after consultations with stakeholders)
3. Database development and quantitative ecological risk assessments
4. Recommendations for risk reduction/management steps and monitoring
Risk assessment & ranking
• Effects/hazard assessment• Likelihood assessment
Decision processes
Risk management
Problem formulation
Issue/Hazard Assessment
Further investigations
Monitoring
Alternativescenarios
Making risk
management
decisions
Conceptual model for multiple pressuresScale 3
Scale 2
Scale 1
Pr (Risk) = Pr (effects) x Pr (exposure)
Infrastructure
Mining
FeralsFire
Climate change
Weeds
extinctextinct
seedseed
adultadultadultadult
extinctextinct
seedseed
WaterWater drawdowndrawdown FloodedFlooded
Annual, short-livedAnnual, short-livedspeciesspecies
Perennial, short-livedPerennial, short-livedspeciesspecies
seedseed seedseed
adultadult adultadult
extinctextinct extinctextinct
WaterWater drawdowndrawdown FloodedFlooded
How will increased external pressures affect the vegetationpatterns and ecological character?
Transition states for wetland vegetation - water drawdown & flooded conditions - based on reproductive features.
Project 3:Development of a framework for the analysis of ecosystem services provided by rivers/wetlands
1. Derive a framework and an initial database for analysing ecosystem services provided by aquatic ecosystems
2. Conducted by students from University of Wageningen (Netherlands)
3. Small budget project, regarded as a pilot study with no resources to apply elsewhere (outside of NT)
Integrated assessment framework for project overview
Sub-project 1: Function analysis & . Ecological valuation
(Sophie)
Sub-project 2: Socio-cultural valuation (Bas) .
Sub-project 3: Socio-economic . valuation (Clement)
Sub-project 4: Integrated cost-benefit . analysis (Olga)
Sub-project 5: Policy analysis & . Institutional aspects
(Pujan)Sub-project 6: Planning & . Management measures
(Matt)
(5) Policy Analysis and Institutional
Aspects
(1) Ecological ValuesBased on ecological
integrity
(3) Economic ValuesBased on efficiency and
cost-effectiveness
(2) Socio-cultural valuesBased on equity and cultural perceptions
(1) EcosystemFunctions/ Goods & Services
1. Regulation
2. Habitat
3. Production
4. Information
5. Carrier
(4) IntegratedCost-Benefit
Analysis
(6) Planning &Management Measures
StakeholderInvolvement
Decision-Making Process
Daly and Mary Rivers (NT) - 27 different functions (goods and services)
•Provisioning services - agriculture (cattle, buffalo), horticulture, crocodile farming, aquaculture, mining; harvesting natural resources such as food, commercial and subsistence fishing, medicinal resources, ornamental resources
•Supporting services - habitat for wildlife and as nursery areas
•Regulating services - climate regulation, water supply (for flora, fauna and human use), regulating runoff, soil retention, soil formation, nutrient regulation and waste treatment
•Cultural and amenity services: aesthetic information, recreation & tourism, spiritual and historic information, cultural and artistic information, and use in science and education.
Economic value of 10 of 27 main goods and service - estimated A$50.7 million for Mary River catchment (~A$ 450/ha) and A$82.4 million for Daly river catchment (~A$230/ha)
Low figure compared to literature ~ A$4000/ha/year
Economically most important functions - carbon sequestration A$87 million; water use A$46 million; agriculture/horticulture A$26.5 million; tourism A$21 million
Conservative approach - contribution of these wetland goods and services to the local community and the regional economy is much higher than the shown values