Hawkesbury-Nepean - Natural Resource Management region
Regional summary
The Hawkesbury-Nepean catchment stretches 22,000 square kilometres from Goulburn and Tarago in the south, to Lithgow and Oberon in the west, and includes large areas of western Sydney downstream to the estuary at Brooklyn and Pittwater on the coast.
The Hawkesbury-Nepean river system is the lifeblood of the Greater Sydney region, providing drinking water for 5 million people. More than 70 percent of the goods and services produced in New South Wales rely on water from the catchment, while more than $1 billion of horticultural and agricultural production (12 percent of the state's total) occurs in the catchment.
Nearly 50 percent of the catchment is protected in national parks, but outside these areas the population is growing rapidly and is expected to increase from 900,000 residents to 1.3 million in the next 30 years.
Priority issues
Significant threats to the natural resources in the region include:
- demand for water to meet the growing needs of residents and industries in Sydney and in the Hawkesbury-Nepean catchment itself. This has major impacts on river health, agricultural industries, commercial fishing and tourism and recreation
- new development in the catchment impacting on industries and historic land uses such as agriculture
- pest plants and animals impacting on the health of native bushland and affecting agricultural productivity
- land degradation from grazing pressure, vegetation clearance and drought adding to soil erosion issues in the catchment
- damaged creek and riverbanks caused by stock access, recreational use, and vegetation clearance affecting local water quality and river health
- high volumes of water extracted from the river and the substantial changes to the natural river flow regimes increasing the level of nutrients in the river and the problems of aquatic weed growth
Regional plan
The former Hawkesbury Nepean Catchment Management Board - predecessor to the current Hawkesbury Nepean Catchment Management Authority - endorsed the integrated natural resource management plans (NRM), the blueprints, for what is now the Hawkesbury Nepean region, incorporating social, economic and environmental elements of NRM.
These blueprints are based on a whole-of-catchment approach and set 10-year catchment condition targets for the priority NRM issues of the region. They outline the tasks to be accomplished to achieve these targets.
These blueprints form the basis for the development of Investment Strategies that are used to attract funding from the Australian and state governments, and from other sources, for the specific actions identified in the Investment Strategy.
The ongoing increase in population - and associated pressures on the environment - creates an urgent need to pursue sustainable catchment management. Farmlands in the region's south and west face significant environmental issues such as soil erosion. The blueprints set the direction for managing vegetation, biodiversity, water and soil.
Current activities
| NRM priority | Activities addressing the priority |
|---|---|
| River health | Improving the biodiversity values of rivers and streams in the catchment by:
|
| Soil and land | Contribute to sustainable agriculture through:
|
| Biodiversity | Addressing key threats to biodiversity conservation by:
|
| Community partnerships |
|
Contacts
Further information can be obtained by contacting the Regional Facilitators for New South Wales.
Region summaries
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You can also use your town name to find your NRM Region.
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