Commonwealth Long-Term Intervention Monitoring Project: Stage 1 Mid-Term Review and Evaluation

Warrego-Darling

Four small to moderate flow events containing environmental water flowed down the Darling River during the 2015-16 water year. These occurred in July-October 2015, November 2015, January-March 2016 and June 2016. No environmental water was accounted for in the Warrego River or on the Western Floodplain in the Selected Area. However, a small flow event containing around 4% Commonwealth environmental water from the upper Warrego catchment flowed into the Selected Area during February-March 2016.

A moderate pulse in the Darling River began in June 2016 reaching 4,818 ML/d at the Bourke Town gauge (NSW425003) by 30 June 2016, peaking at 8,542 ML/d on 7 July 2016. Flow events of this size occur less than 20% of the time.

Use of Commonwealth Toorale entitlements is expected to contribute to the following on-park outcomes at Toorale and/or in the Darling River downstream (Frazier et al. 2016):

• support periods of high primary productivity triggered by unregulated flow events and carbon and nutrient cycling

• support wetland and aquatic vegetation condition and diversity

• support waterbird survival and condition and diversity

• inundate and connect in-channel habitat associated with riffles, pools, bars and anabranches to support movement and biotic dispersal

• maintain water quality and carbon/nutrient cycling processes

• provide hydrological connectivity and improve end-of-system flows

Findings: The expected outcomes listed in the Warrego-Darling Evaluation report are, in theory linked to both longer-term and broader objectives set out in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan; however these are not presented as SMART outcomes and are not measurable in their current form. This is a problem with how they are presented in the Annual watering Priorities – Commonwealth of Australia (2014). The annual watering priorities for the Northern unregulated rivers for 2014-15 and 2015-16 were for maintenance of native fish and waterbird refuges. Only one option (option 6) was relevant to the SA and it focused on waterbird refuges on the western floodplain which didn’t receive water in 2015-16 (Commonwealth of Australia 2014, p31). Stating that most, if not all, expected outcomes were achieved and that CEW made a contribution to these is in a strict sense not accurate, as there is no indication of what the actual outcome was expected to be. For this reason we have assigned red to a number of indicators. The expected outcomes for this SA need to be written as SMART – for example stating salinity or individual survival and condition (individual refuges and ecosystem resistance) as expected outcomes, gives no insight at all to what is the expectation of response to watering – they do not meet any of the SMART criteria.

The evaluation questions are not provided in the main report. Frazier et al. (2016) is really a synthesis report that is set at a very high level with little detail provided in the main report. Presumably, the detail is in the Appendices. However, without spending excessive time in reviewing the Appendices, I could not assess the quality of this work (DN: RB did review the appendices to assess progress on objectives – see table below).

I recommend that CEWO require the Gwydir/Warrego-Darling team in future years to provide more detail on: what the evaluation questions for that year are; the monitoring program (i.e. what was measured, when and where); how the results were analysed; what the outcomes were (in terms of the evaluation questions); what adaptive management occurred (if any); and recommendations for future years (i.e. what did we learn and what do we want to do differently).

Appendices could be reduced in size by removing repeated text.

Table . Assessment of progress towards expected outcomes and Area-scale LTIM KEQ for the Warrego-Darling.

Expected outcomes for 2014–15 and 2015-16 (Frazier et al. 2016, Table 5.1)	Indicator	Area-scale KEQ	Rating	Justification
Individual survival and condition (individual refuges and ecosystem resistance) Salinity Dissolved oxygen pH Dissolved organic carbon Nutrient and carbon cycling Fish reproduction Fish condition Vegetation reproduction Vegetation condition Waterbird survival and condition Waterbird chicks Waterbird fledglings Hydrological connectivity including end of system flows Biotic dispersal and movement Primary productivity (of aquatic ecosystems)	Hydrology (river)	What did CEW contribute to hydrological connectivity?		Good outcome in Darling River, but less so in Warrego. Achieving connectivity is more dependent on upstream conditions than other SA. Likely to be achieved with relatively small flows.
	Hydrology (northern tributaries)	What did Commonwealth environmental water from upstream tributaries contribute to hydrological connectivity within the Selected Area?		CEW estimated to be around 5%, 4% and 30% in the 2015-16 flows, enhancing in-channel longitudinal connection. Similar to 2014-15, where two CEW events contributed 4% and 25% of flows at the SA. Overall CEW played a small role in promoting the transmission of natural flow events downstream towards the SA (Frazier et al. 2016)
	Hydrology (channel)	What did Commonwealth environmental water contribute to hydrological connectivity?		“Work in coming years will further elucidate the implications of this complexity in channel character for hydrological connectivity, the ecology and ecosystem processes along the lower Warrego River within the Selected Area” Frazier et al. (2016), pC-9. The results presented are about geomorphology – not what CEW has achieved – not clear if this should be considered a separate hydrological indicator – depends on what will be monitored into the future.
	Hydrology (habitat)	What did Commonwealth environmental water contribute to in-channel habitat availability along the Darling River?		CEW contributed to around 30% of benches and anabranch channels being inundated in low flow events. Inundated habitat was considered likely to contribute a small amount of dissolved carbon and nutrients to the river system. Forty two percent of snags were also inundated throughout the year providing additional habitat for fish and other aquatic biota (Frazier et al. 2016).
	Hydrology (floodplain)	What did Commonwealth environmental water and management contribute to hydrological connectivity of the Western Floodplain?		No CEW reached the Western Floodplain.
	Water quality	What did CEW contribute to: temperature regimes? pH levels? turbidity regimes? salinity regimes? dissolved oxygen levels? algal suppression?		Exec summary states lowering of pH and conductivity – but results in appendix state highest conductivities were associated with the peak flows which had about 30% CEW. Water column pH also rose in the peak flows, whilst other variables showed effects of dilution. Seems to be a mismatch in the interpretation. The other smaller flows only had up to 4.5% CEW. Probably too early in the project to make clear statements re contribution of CEW to water quality. Need to update/specify expected outcomes. Also there are water quality data reported in the microinvertebrate section which are different to those presented under the water quality indicator – on a superficial review it would seem these should be combined???
	Stream metabolism	What did CEW contribute to: patterns and rates of decomposition? patterns and rates of primary productivity?		Positive relationships between rates of GPP, ER, NPP and nutrient concentrations, and relatively minor changes in hydrology. Increased rates of GPP and ER were associated with higher discharge, suggesting ewater in the Darling River contributes to improved water clarity and/or increase inorganic nutrients that promote pelagic primary production (Frazier et al 2016).
	Microinvertebrates	What did CEW contribute to: microinvertebrate productivity? microinvertebrate community composition? microinvertebrate and vegetation communities in floodplain watercourse?		Don’t understand why vegetation is in the KEQ to do with microinvertebrates? Don’t understand why there are separate treatments of water quality and stream metabolism in this section of the Appendices. There was no significant temporal pattern in Shannon diversity during the sampling period. The two rivers had different communities and successional turnover was observed – however the conclusion that this is attributable to connectivity and CEW is questionable. Further technical review is required and links to expected outcomes (when drafted as SMART) should be made clearer.
	Macroinvertebrates	What did CEW contribute to macroinvertebrate diversity?		First year of data – not monitored in 2014-15. Too early to make conclusions re contribution of CEW.
	Ecosystem type	What did Commonwealth environmental water contribute to sustainable ecosystem diversity? Were ecosystems to which Commonwealth environmental water was allocated sustained? Was Commonwealth environmental water delivered to a representative suite of Ecosystem types?		No watering on the Western floodplain only in channel, so limited number of ecosystem types influenced.
	Vegetation diversity	What did CEW contribute to: vegetation species diversity? vegetation community diversity?		No watering of the western floodplain, so not able to attribute vegetation response to ewater. Heavy rainfall prior to sampling had an effect on results. No discussion of constraints but if CEW doesn’t make it onto the floodplain then this indicator is not going to be achieved.
	Fish (river)	What did CEW contribute to: native fish community resilience? native fish survival? native fish populations? native fish diversity?		Provides baseline data on fish in the Warrego. No planned CEW, only a small amount derived from an upstream contribution made its way to the SA – 4% contribution. This likely contributed to increased recruitment and abundance in fish post the connecting flow.
	Frogs	What did CEW contribute to: frog populations? frog species diversity? frog survival?		Diversity and abundance post rainfall on floodplain highest. Too early to address KEQ.
	Waterbird diversity	What did CEW contribute to: waterbird populations? waterbird species diversity? waterbird survival?		Abundance and species richness corresponded to habitat and resource availability. No difference between year 1 and 2, and no difference between channel and floodplain sites except in March 2015. Good floodplain results in year 1 attributable to CEW.

1^ SMART objectives are:  Specific – clear and unambiguous; Measurable –quantified, contain a measurable element that can be readily monitored to determine success or failure; Achievable – realistic and attainable; Relevant – considerate of temporal scale of response, resources available; and Time bound – specify a time scale in which the outcome is met/assessed.

2^ http://www.environment.gov.au/water/cewo/about-commonwealth-environmental-water

3^ Management of: LTIM finances; LTIM contractual issues; the LTIM Monitoring Data Management System; and management of advice, coordination of issues, cross project coordination and consistency.

4^ SMART objectives are:  Specific – clear and unambiguous; Measurable –quantified, contain a measurable element that can be readily monitored to determine success or failure; Achievable – realistic and attainable; Relevant – considerate of temporal scale of response, resources available; and Time bound – specify a time scale in which the outcome is met/assessed.

5^ R. Stoffels, personal communication, 2 Nov 2017

6^ R. Stoffels, personal communication, January 2018.

7^ B. Stewart-Koster, personal communication, February 2018.

8^ M. Grace, personal communication, February 2018.

9^ S Brooks, Personal Communication, 19 January 2018

10^ Prof Nick Bond, MDFRC, Personal communication, 1 March 2018

11^ Personal communication, Sam Roseby, CEWO, 23 January 2018

12^ Note that several of the Selected Area teams have key evaluation questions regarding ecosystem diversity in their MEP.

13^ https://www.mdba.gov.au/publications/mdba-reports/2017-basin-plan-evaluation-reports