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DWE Home > Home > Water Management > Water for the environment > Environmental Monitoring

Water for the environment

Environmental Monitoring

Monitoring the effects of environmental water rules is vital if we are to see whether the environment is reacting to changed flow regimes as expected. For example, many important wetlands in NSW are currently targeted by environmental releases. Are the flows causing adequate inundation? Are there subsequently more plants and greater numbers of waterbirds? Monitoring changes in basic ecosystem properties, such as flow, habitat quality and species, will answer these questions.

Aquatic plants in Yarrada Lagoon, Murrumbidgee River, three months after environmental releases flooded the lagoon. Plants, macroinvertebrates and water quality are monitored after every environmental release under DNR's IMEF program. Source: James Maguire, DNR.

It is equally important that we understand the reasons for that change, and develop ways in which this new knowledge can be adapted into water management. This means that monitoring needs to incorporate routine assessment of how ecosystems respond to environmental flow rules, but also needs to include practical research that investigates relationships between water regime and ecosystem processes. For example, does protection of freshes provide nutrients to rivers, and how are those nutrients utilised by the fauna and flora in the river? As our knowledge and understanding increases, we will be able to allocate water to the environment more effectively, and better evaluate the performance of the water sharing plans. Without scientific feedback, efficient sharing of water is impossible.

Three major environmental monitoring programs are being undertaken by DNR in NSW:

• The Integrated Monitoring of Environmental Flows program (IMEF) which monitors the ecological response to environmental flow rules in the major regulated river systems and the Barwon- Darling River.
• The Snowy River environmental response monitoring program which monitors the impacts of the additional flows being provided to the Snowy River under the Snowy Initiative.
• With the development of water sharing plans, environmental monitoring is now being extended to unregulated river systems.

DNR is also involved in the Sustainable Rivers Audit which is being overseen by the Murray-Darling Basin Commission to assess the ecological condition and health of the rivers in the Murray-Darling Basin.