Ensuring the wise use of Australia’s tropical rivers and wetlands

Benchmarking Northern Australia’s Tropical Rivers Before Further Degradation: Practical Approaches

& Constraints

Max Finlayson, George Lukacs, John Lowry, Rick van Dam, Renee Bartolo & Rudolf De Groot

International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka; Environmental Research Institute of the Supervising Scientist, Darwin, Australia; James Cook University, Townsville, Australia;Wageningen

University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

A Project of the National Rivers Consortium

Aim & ObjectivesAim: to better inform natural resource managers and

decision-makers about the status of the rivers and wetlands in northern (tropical) Australia

Objectives: provide an information base for determining management priorities

1. undertake (collate) a multiple-scale inventory of the habitats and biota of the rivers and wetlands

2. undertake risk assessments of the major pressures on the habitats and biota of the rivers and wetlands

3. develop and test a framework for analysis of the ecosystem services (e.g. provision of water for multiple uses), provided by the rivers and wetlands of northern Australia

Practical Approaches & ConstraintsConstraints:

- information base is fragmented, and/or inaccessible, and insufficient for addressing management needs

- research/assessment capacity is limited, centralised and bureaucratic and/or academic

- local communities and indigenous people often not effectively engaged and/or empowered

- driven largely be agendas from southern Australia

Practical Approaches:

- invest in ongoing stakeholder relationships

- recognise, share and exchange information from multiple sources

- make better use of and identify weaknesses in existing data

- use (and improve) proven structured data collation and analytical approaches

Tropical Rivers Project Area

Land & Water Australia (2004)

FOCAL CATCHMENTS

Fitzroy (WA)

Daly (NT)

Flinders (Qld)

51 catchments1,190,973 km2

3 focus catchments – Fitzroy, Daly & Flinders

Integrated framework for wetland inventory, assessment and monitoring at multiple-scales.

Inventory MonitoringAssessment

Environmental Impact Assessment

Strategic Environmental Assessment

Risk Assessment

Rapid Assessment

Economic ValuationVulnerability Assessment

Broad-scale Broad-scale

Detailed

An integrated information base (inventory):

Built upon: consultation – involvement and recognition of

multiple knowledge sources sharing/exchange and analysis of existing

information, and specific investigations to provide further data

As a reference for assessing change in the ecological character of the rivers/wetlands (habitats, species, and the ecosystem services they provide)

Inventory of the biological, chemical and physical features of rivers/wetlands1. Consultation (ongoing)

2. Mapping:— includes 1:250 k across northern Australia— finer scales for focal catchments (1:100 k – 1:50 k)

3. Collate existing river-reach attribute data for GIS (geomorphology, water quality, hydrology, vegetation, birds, fish, invertebrates, reptiles and amphibians)

4. Determine classification for ecological characterisation and inventory of rivers, and extrapolate to GIS

5. Ground-truthing and sampling regimes for focal catchments (where identified and necessary)

6. Reporting

Tropical Rivers ProjectLandform Data

Location of gauging stations throughout the project area with a period of record at least 20 y.

Location of gauging stations within the Daly river catchment with at least 20 y of complete annual flow data.

0 100 200 300 400

Mean annual runoff (m m )

G 8140001

G 8140008

G 8140152

G 8140040

G 8140158

G 8140161

G 8140067

G 8140063

G 8140151

G 8140068

G 8140044

G 8140011

0 0.5 1 1.5 2

C oeffic ient of variation

G 8140159

Inter-annual variability of runoff (Left) and mean annual runoff (Right) of the streams within the Daly river catchment area.

Identifying & compilation of base drainage data

Validation / cleaning of base drainage data

 

Broad scale classification

Focus-catchment scale classification

Bedrock channel Bedrock channel

Bedrock confined Bedrock-confined

Alluvial Low sinuosity rivers

Meandering rivers

Floodouts

Multiple channel rivers

Wandering channel rivers

Lake / swamp Non-channelised

Swamp / waterbody dominated zone

Estuarine Tidal

Records of seasonal occurrence of Little Curlew

Sept Oct-Jan

Feb-mid March mid March - April

Aboriginal cultural landscape – a living, cultural environment

Assessment of major pressures on rivers/wetlands

1. Within selected major catchments and at important sites

2. Collation of information on pressures (after consultations with stakeholders)

3. Database development and quantitative ecological risk assessments

4. Recommendations for risk reduction/management steps and monitoring

Risk assessment & ranking

• Effects/hazard assessment• Likelihood assessment

Decision processes

Risk management

Problem formulation

Issue/Hazard Assessment

Further investigations

Monitoring

Alternativescenarios

Making risk

management

decisions

Conceptual model for multiple pressuresScale 3

Scale 2

Scale 1

Pr (Risk) = Pr (effects) x Pr (exposure)

Infrastructure

Mining

FeralsFire

Climate change

Weeds

extinctextinct

seedseed

adultadultadultadult

extinctextinct

seedseed

WaterWater drawdowndrawdown FloodedFlooded

Annual, short-livedAnnual, short-livedspeciesspecies

Perennial, short-livedPerennial, short-livedspeciesspecies

seedseed seedseed

adultadult adultadult

extinctextinct extinctextinct

WaterWater drawdowndrawdown FloodedFlooded

How will increased external pressures affect the vegetationpatterns and ecological character?

Transition states for wetland vegetation - water drawdown & flooded conditions - based on reproductive features.

Project 3:Development of a framework for the analysis of ecosystem services provided by rivers/wetlands

1. Derive a framework and an initial database for analysing ecosystem services provided by aquatic ecosystems

2. Conducted by students from University of Wageningen (Netherlands)

3. Small budget project, regarded as a pilot study with no resources to apply elsewhere (outside of NT)

Integrated assessment framework for project overview

Sub-project 1: Function analysis & . Ecological valuation

(Sophie)

Sub-project 2: Socio-cultural valuation (Bas) .

Sub-project 3: Socio-economic . valuation (Clement)

Sub-project 4: Integrated cost-benefit . analysis (Olga)

Sub-project 5: Policy analysis & . Institutional aspects

(Pujan)Sub-project 6: Planning & . Management measures

(Matt)

(5) Policy Analysis and Institutional

Aspects

(1) Ecological ValuesBased on ecological

integrity

(3) Economic ValuesBased on efficiency and

cost-effectiveness

(2) Socio-cultural valuesBased on equity and cultural perceptions

(1) EcosystemFunctions/ Goods & Services

1. Regulation

2. Habitat

3. Production

4. Information

5. Carrier

(4) IntegratedCost-Benefit

Analysis

(6) Planning &Management Measures

StakeholderInvolvement

Decision-Making Process

Daly and Mary Rivers (NT) - 27 different functions (goods and services)

•Provisioning services - agriculture (cattle, buffalo), horticulture, crocodile farming, aquaculture, mining; harvesting natural resources such as food, commercial and subsistence fishing, medicinal resources, ornamental resources

•Supporting services - habitat for wildlife and as nursery areas

•Regulating services - climate regulation, water supply (for flora, fauna and human use), regulating runoff, soil retention, soil formation, nutrient regulation and waste treatment

•Cultural and amenity services: aesthetic information, recreation & tourism, spiritual and historic information, cultural and artistic information, and use in science and education.

Economic value of 10 of 27 main goods and service - estimated A$50.7 million for Mary River catchment (~A$ 450/ha) and A$82.4 million for Daly river catchment (~A$230/ha)

Low figure compared to literature ~ A$4000/ha/year

Economically most important functions - carbon sequestration A$87 million; water use A$46 million; agriculture/horticulture A$26.5 million; tourism A$21 million

Conservative approach - contribution of these wetland goods and services to the local community and the regional economy is much higher than the shown values

Thank you