The National Water Commission has released three separate reports under its 2011 Assessment of the National Water Initiative, arguing for targeted investment in new knowledge and ongoing monitoring to support sustainable water management.

 

The Commission released the Guidance on ecological responses and hydrological modeling for low-flow water planning report, which provides a decision support for improving how low flows and cease-to-flows are managed, monitored, modelled and planned for. The Commission had previously found that there was room for improvement in drought planning, defining how systems will operate during low inflows, considering climate change in water plans, and in handling ecological issues.

 

The Commission reviewed and prioritised the knowledge gaps in monitoring and modelling low flows, and in relevant ecological information.  It then commissioned two low flows projects:

  • The 'Low Flow Ecological Response and Recovery' project aimed to assist water planners by setting out and quantifying a national understanding of how individual species, biotic assemblages and ecosystem processes respond to the onset of, and recover from, single and successive low flow events. 
  • The 'Low Flow Hydrological Modelling' project aimed to improve the accuracy and ease of modelling low flows and cease to flow circumstances in gauged and ungauged rivers.  This will improve the information that underpins water plans across Australia.

 

This report is the culmination of a series of reports from the two projects. Key findings are organised around typical water planning steps to ensure the information is accessible to water planners and managers.

 

The second report, Ecological limits of hydrologic alteration: a test of the ELOHA framework in south-east Queensland,  marks the end of a four-year project to explore the scientific and management implications of the ecological limits of hydrologic alteration (ELOHA) framework - an internationally recognised model for regional environmental flow assessment.

 

The third report, the National Waterbird Assessment,  was initiated to provide new data resources to support water planning and inform environmental watering decisions.  The report outlines the results of the 2008 National Waterbird Survey and provides a baseline against which to compare future data, including more recent evidence of a rebound in waterbird populations following the wetter years in 2011 and 2012. It also analyses trends based on 27 years of data from the Australian Eastern Aerial Surveys, indicating a decline in waterbird numbers in eastern Australia over the study period. This project also entailed the development of a database to hold the waterbird survey information, including both the long-term aerial surveys of the eastern states and the 2008 national snapshot survey.  The University of New South Wales will host this database. 

 

The Ecological limits of hydrologic alteration: a test of the ELOHA framework in south-east Queensland can be found here

 

The National Waterbird Assessment can be found here

 

Guidance on ecological responses and hydrological modeling for low-flow water planning report can be found here