Water Quality Monitoring

Developing a Comprehensive Water Quality Strategy
for the Catchments of South-East Qld, Australia

The South-East Queensland Water Quality Management Strategy forms a regional component of the National Water Quality Management Strategy, a national program in Australia to achieve ecologically sustainable use of water resources by protecting and enhancing their quality, while maintaining economic and social development. Stages 1 and 2 of the Strategy culminated in the highly successful study of water quality and associated ecological health of Moreton Bay and its estuaries.

The Strategy has completed Stage 3, which consisted of inter-related projects focusing on the rivers, streams and groundwater within the study region. Our group, CSIRO Environmetrics (through Dr Bronwyn Harch), has had collaborative involvement in a multi-disciplinary team focused on the, “Evaluation/Design and Implementation of Baseline Monitoring”, which aimed to identify management goals for waters and design of a feedback loop on the success of the strategy. Commonwealth and State government agencies, as well industry and community groups were involved in this research task.

The major aim of the project is to develop a generic water quality monitoring program for rivers, streams and groundwater within the SE Queensland region of Australia. More specifically, this project delivered: A classification system for the freshwaters of the region Identification appropriate indicators for assessing water quality (vis ecological health) Specification of water quality guidelines appropriate to the principal classes of waters Pilot studies that tested indicators, assessed variability and developed appropriate guidelines Design of an effective coordinated monitoring and assessment program for freshwaters of the region A protocol for reporting on current and future changes in water quality and ecological condition via the resulting data from the monitoring program           For more information - http://www.coastal.crc.org.au/ehmp/index.html Bronwyn Harch   Ph: +61-(0)7-3214-2952   Fax: +61-(0)7-3214-2900 Related Links http://www.healthywaterways.env.qld.gov.au/ http://www.gu.edu.au/centre/ccisr/ http://www.dnr.qld.gov.au/ http://www.env.qld.gov.au/ http://enterprise.canberra.edu.au/WWW/www-crcfe.nsf

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last updated 14/07/03