Freshwater ecosystems

5.10 National River Health Program

The National River Health Program's (NRHP) objectives are to:

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  provide a sound information base on which to establish environmental flows;
  
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  undertake a comprehensive assessment of the health of inland waters, identify key areas for the maintenance of aquatic and riparian health and biodiversity and identify stressed inland waters;
  
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  consolidate and apply techniques for improving the health of inland waters, particularly those identified as stressed;
  
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  develop community, industry and management expertise in sustainable water resources management and raise awareness of environmental health issues and the needs of our rivers.
  

The primary foci⁸⁶ of the NRHP are currently: the development and implementation of procedures to monitor river health, and (b) the development of environmental flow methodologies and programs. The program is directed and funded (from NHT funds) through Environment Australia, the Commonwealth environmental agency.

The NRHP collects macroinvertebrate data from river systems throughout Australia. Individual site data is grouped to characterise reference condition, then formalised using the AusRivAS (Australia) model software. Models are calibrated to allow comparison of macroinvertebrate assemblages between reference and impacted sites, and ratings are developed and reported.
The NRHP is also extending the use of the Index of Stream Condition (ISC) - developed in Victoria - to nation-wide assessments. The ISC overviews five indicators of river health: hydrology, physical form, the riparian zone, water quality, and aquatic life. This index appears likely to be replaced by the Assessment of River Condition (ARC) index now under development though a NLWRA project (see above).
Similar indexes for wetlands and aquifers have not been developed, and as far as I can ascertain, are not under development in Australia - this is an area where further work is needed. However, the rivers audit program proposed by the Cooperative Research Centre for Freshwater Ecology does apply similar approaches to both rivers and wetlands.

5.11 The Murray-Darling Basin Commission

With a catchment of over one million square kilometres, the Murray-Darling river system is Australia's largest river basin. The catchment spans five of Australia's eight jurisdictions: Queensland, New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and South Australia. It is also one of the country's most degraded (see discussion under "threats to freshwater ecosystems" above). A recent snapshot of the condition of the Murray-Darling Basin classed 95 per cent of the river length as ‘degraded’, with 30 per cent modified substantially from the original condition (Norris et. al. 2001). In addition, 40 per cent of the river length assessed had significantly impaired biota.
The Murray-Darling Basin Commission (MDBC) is founded on the need to apply coordinated cross-border solutions to the catchment's problems. The MDBC is steered by a ministerial council (the Murray-Darling Basin Council), is funded by the five jurisdictions plus the Commonwealth, and has close links with the Cooperative Research Centre for Freshwater Ecology, headed by Professor Peter Cullen at the University of Canberra.
The MDBC placed a cap on further water allocations from the basin in 1994, as already mentioned. This cap is Australia's only serious attempt to manage cumulative effects of incremental water infrastructure development over a large area - and has been at least partially successful in slowing the degradation of freshwater ecosystems within the Basin. However, ecosystem health and water quality continue to decline⁸⁷.
The MDBC published a Floodplain Wetlands Management Strategy in 1998. While the strategy seeks to protect the basin's wetlands, its strategic context is limited. There is no discussion of a "no net loss" approach, there is no recognition of the intrinsic values of wetlands, there is no strategy developed for managing cumulative effects in wetland catchments, and there is no discussion of the role of representative reserves in providing sustainability benchmarks. The only reference to the latter issue can be found in Appendix Seven, where "representative" values of wetlands are identified amongst those values used for the selection of wetlands for rehabilitation.
The Murray Darling Basin Ministerial Council published "a draft statement of commitment by community and governments on the future management of the natural resources of the Murray-Darling Basin" in September 2000. In the document's favour, it does attempt to establish a framework to facilitate consistency of management throughout a large river basin spanning five major jurisdictions. This is ambitious and important.
However, in spite of its rhetoric, the document is superficial and conceptually flawed. Of perhaps even greater concern is evidence of a cringing underlying attitude, hardly indicative of the strength of purpose which will be necessary to reverse existing and continuing environmental degradation within the Basin⁸⁸.

5.12 The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation

The CSIRO has two Divisions working in areas of direct relevance to the issues under discussion in this paper: the Sustainable Ecosystems Division, and the Division of Land and Water Management.
These two arms of the CSIRO are undertaking research (generally funded through grants or contracts) on a variety of issues relating to freshwater biodiversity, including integrated catchment management, and groundwater / surface water interactions. The CSIRO has the scientific expertise to assist States in developing the programs recommended in this paper. However, such work depends almost completely on the existence of funding sources external to the CSIRO.

5.13 AFFA and the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality

AFFA stands for 'Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Australia'. AFFA is the Commonwealth agency charged with promoting the sustainable development of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, and runs a variety of program in these areas. Many of these programs are brought together by the recent Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality (the 'Action Plan')⁸⁹.
The stated purpose of the Action Plan is to identify "high priority, immediate actions to address salinity, particularly dryland salinity, and deteriorating water quality in key catchments and regions across Australia - to ensure that our land and water management practices will sustain productive and profitable land and water uses as well as our natural environments." The Action Plan is a potentially powerful and far-reaching document, embodying current concerns relating to:

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  increased integration of different aspects of natural resource management, within catchment frameworks where appropriate;
  
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  using market mechanisms to target natural resource goals efficiently and effectively; and
  
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  increasing community involvement as well as the transparency and accountability of management programs.
  

Aspects of the plan impact strongly on the issues under discussion in this paper: The Action Plan, amongst other matters, promotes:

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  the establishment of performance targets relating to stream biodiversity.
  

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  the implementation of natural resource management planning through catchment or regional plans. "The Commonwealth and States/Territories will need to agree on targets and outcomes for each integrated catchment/region management plan, in partnership with the community, and accredit each plan for its strategic content, proposed targets and outcomes, accountability, performance monitoring and reporting".
  

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  drainage in catchments/regions where agreed by affected land managers, the downstream impacts are positive, and the overall benefits of the scheme provide substantial long-term results over other approaches.
  

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  caps to be set for all surface and groundwater systems identified as over-allocated or approaching full allocation.
  
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  introduction of a new approach to groundwater and surface water administration that recognises their interdependency and the need for their joint management for salinity and water quality outcomes.
  
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  a natural resource management trading "trust". The "trust" would be the market intermediary between private and public investors with interests in improved environmental management outcomes for salinity, carbon, biodiversity etc (such as lowered water tables, reduced stream salinity, cleaner water and air, nature conservation) and landholders who would provide those outcomes (for example through tree planting and habitat protection) in selected salinity/water quality impacted catchments/regions. These "credits" and unit shares would be tradeable on private markets.
  

Under the provisions of the Action Plan:

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  Commonwealth funding will only be made available to those States/Territories prepared to implement the Action Plan as a package, that is including the governance and capacity building initiatives as well as the support for the development of integrated catchment/region management plans which address salinity and water quality and other related natural resource management issues in an integrated way;
  
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  Regional communities will need to be organised into appropriate catchment/regional based bodies, and be accountable for the expenditure of public funds including block funding and for reporting against well defined delivery requirements;
  
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  The Commonwealth and States and Territories will need a single Natural Resource Management Council that can sign off on the targets and standards, and establish arrangements for monitoring progress in achieving them.
  
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  A COAG agreement should ensure that the Council has the necessary powers to undertake this role with rigour, transparency and decisiveness.
  
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  A new natural resource management council would replace existing Commonwealth/State/Territory councils on issues currently concerned with elements of salinity, water quality, biodiversity and other natural resource management and related environmental issues
  

This agenda targets some of the "eleven key assumptions" listed earlier in the paper which are underwriting the continuing degradation of the nation's freshwater resources. It is encouraging to see renewed calls for the integrated management of ground and surface waters (see section 4.4 above), and for an increasing emphasis on quality assurance within management frameworks though goal-oriented planning, implementation (which must include compliance auditing), monitoring and review (see section 4.6 above).

Although the Action Plan acknowledges the need to manage cumulative impacts, it does so in way which, to a large extent, perpetuates the existing assumptions which have caused the problem. Note that, under the Action Plan, caps are proposed only when a catchment is either over-allocated (when it's already far too late) or when it's approaching full allocation. I have argued above that the effective management of cumulative effects will be extremely difficult or impossible under these conditions, and to be effective, caps must be negotiated and agreed long before a catchment reaches full allocation (see section 4, above).
The NAP is focussed on only 20 key catchments around Australia, and this focus on catchments already under stress, combined with the low level of funding ($1.4 billion over 7 years) represents major limitations on the program.
The Action Plan, however, in promoting integrated natural resource management within a catchment context, does at least sow the seeds for the management processes which can address cumulative impacts. It is to be hoped that, as the Action Plan proceeds, the issue of cumulative effects will be addressed in more courageous and effective ways.