CSIRO has launched a new Ecological Responses to Altered Flow Regimes Cluster to develop science that will optimise the benefits of environmental water for aquatic ecosystems.

 

The research will initially focus on the Murray–Darling Basin, but it is expected that many of the findings will be applicable to other  river and wetland systems.

 

The Cluster, led by Professor Stuart Bunn from the Australian Rivers Institute at Griffith University, will bring together Australia’s leading water scientists and ecologists, and will aim to produce:

  • an inventory of the environmental assets in the Murray–Darling Basin;
  • an assessment of the water requirements of these assets; and
  • a framework for optimising environmental flow allocation decisions.

Participants in the cluster include researchers from the CSIRO, Griffith University, the University of New South Wales, Monash University, Charles Sturt University, La Trobe University and the Victorian Department of Sustainability’s Arthur Rylah Institute.