Collecting data protects waterways and wetlands

A tax audit can be gruelling, but a freshwater ecosystem audit is exhaustive. This entails a comprehensive, four-year audit of every river, lake, wetland, estuary, karst system and saltmarsh in Tasmania.

The results of this audit - carried out by Tasmanian Department for Primary Industries and Water - are then fed into a mathematical equation to calculate the conservation value of each ecosystem. Put simply, an algorithm calculates where important freshwater values exist and what condition they are in.

The end result is a Conservation of Freshwater Ecosystem Values (CFEV) database - but the work is not over. Ground-truthing has begun on a number of the 350,000-plus individual river sections, 20,500 wetlands, 1,300 lakes, 100 estuaries and more than 300 karst areas and saltmarshes.

Funding

This has been achieved with the support of more than $460,000 from the Australian and State Governments, through the Southern Natural Resource Management Regional Committee.

Activities and achievements

Project Manager Danielle Hardie said the aim was to increase confidence within the government, industry and community that high priority freshwater values were being considered in the management of water resources.

"One of the important areas in the database is the Derwent Estuary, which is the only micro-tidal drowned river valley along the east coast of Tasmania," Danielle said.

"Another is the Ramsar-listed Ringarooma Wetlands, which are important for the conservation of the rare native fish, Dwarf Galaxiid and two threatened plant species. Then there is the Franklin River, part of which boasts thick, wet rainforest vegetation - habitat for the White-bellied Sea-Eagle and tiny, endemic freshwater snails."

High conservation value ecosystems were identified by taking into account the values of 'naturalness,' 'representativeness' and 'distinctiveness.'

Naturalness is an assessment of change from pre-European condition (such as land clearance) and the presence of exotic species such as trout and willows.

Representativeness is the degree to which an ecosystem represents a particular value, based on a classification. For example, rivers were characterised using information on native fish, vegetation, macroinvertebrates such as water bugs, crayfish, hydrology and geomorphology.

Distinctiveness assesses the presence of other important 'special' values such as rare and threatened species, important geomorphological features, high biodiversity and sites of ecological significance such as migratory bird habitats.

"This is groundbreaking work never before tackled on a statewide scale and could eventually be applicable on a national framework," Danielle said.

More information

• Regional NRM Facilitator: (03) 6208 6101 or regional.facilitator@nrmsouth.org.au

Australian Government NRM Team
GPO Box 787
Canberra ACT 2601 Australia
1800 552 008 (toll-free)

DEWHA  | DAFF  | australia.gov.au  | NAP  | NHT 
Caring for our Country is an Australian Government initiative jointly administered by the Australian Government departments of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts