Freshwater Protected Area Resourcbook

Appendix 19. Criteria for protected area identification and selection

After Kingsford et al. 2005.
Value, condition and importance can be measured qualitatively or quantitatively – see Appendix 7 above. Consistent, transparent management and reporting frameworks depend on repeatable measurements over time, so there is a strong incentive to develop quantitative measures. In reality, however, most ecosystem management frameworks depend to some extent on qualitative concepts relating to value, importance and condition. Kingsford et al. (2005) have reviewed the application of the seven criteria described earlier, and although their review was written with Australian surface waters in mind, it can be refined to include subterranean waters as well:
Seven criteria are recommended:
Criterion 1: The ecosystem and its catchment is largely undisturbed by the direct influence of modern human activity.
Criterion 2: The ecosystem is a good representative example of its type or class within a bioregion or sub-bioregion.
Criterion 3: The ecosystem is the habitat of rare or threatened species or communities, or is the location of rare or threatened or significant geomorphic or geological feature(s), or contains one of only a few known habitats of an organism of unknown distribution⁵⁰⁶.
Criterion 4: The ecosystem demonstrates unusual diversity and/or abundance of features, habitats, communities or species.
Criterion 5: The ecosystem provides evidence of the course or pattern of the evolution of Australia’s landscape or biota.
Criterion 6: The ecosystem provides important resources for particular life-history stages of biota.
Criterion 7: The ecosystem performs important functions or services within the landscape (e.g., refugia, sustaining associated ecosystems).

Rationale of proposed identification criteria:

Criterion 1: The ecosystem and its catchment is largely undisturbed by the direct influence of modern human activity. A large-scale aquatic ecosystem that has a natural or near-natural flow regime and relatively little catchment disturbance is highly likely to retain important natural features, processes, and biota. Adjacent components such as riparian zone vegetation that remain largely unaltered, even if they lie within highly altered catchments, will also retain important natural features, processes and biota. As well as being areas of high conservation value, these undisturbed systems provide important unaltered reference systems (Downes et al. 2002) by which we can assess the condition (‘health’) of those ecosystems affected by change and deliberate modification. Rivers that remain undisturbed from source to mouth are particularly valued, as they are rare even at a global scale. However, so pervasive are anthropogenic impacts (e.g., exotic species, climate change), it is unlikely any truly pristine ecosystems exist. Therefore this criterion applies to ecosystems that are predominantly natural rather than pristine.
This criteria implicitly acknowledges the current lack of detailed understanding of the role, structure and function of ecosystems. By preserving undisturbed ecosystems we will protect many values as yet unrecognised, such as those relating to the smaller ecosystem components: invertebrates and microbes.
Disturbance has been used as a core indicator in major freshwater ecosystem mapping projects – see comments above relating to New Zealand, as well as the Tasmanian Conservation of Freshwater Ecosystem Values (CFEV) project (Appendix 10) and the Australian Wild Rivers project (Appendix 11). Several of the other assessment and classification approaches listed in Appendix 8 use disturbance or naturalness as core criteria.
Most of Australia’s least-disturbed rivers lie to the north (Appendix 12) and a similar situation exists with regard to lentic ecosystems.
Criterion 2: The ecosystem is a good representative example of its type or class within a bioregion. Protecting the diversity of ecosystems within systems of reserves is one of the cornerstones of global biodiversity conservation strategies (Convention on Biological Diversity 1992; principle 8 of the National strategy for the conservation of Australia’s biological diversity 1996).
Aquatic ecosystems that represent a type of ecosystem not otherwise protected within the existing reserve system will make them candidates for protection under this framework, as well as giving them a high importance rating. However, we need to understand how the components inter-relate, at what scale we decide a type of ecosystem contributes to ‘diversity’, and then develop a national ecosystem inventory, encompassing nationally agreed data collection strategies and evaluation, classification, and prioritisation techniques. For this, ecosystem classification methods adopted overseas (e.g., the SERCON system discussed in Boon et al. 1998) are suitable starting places and complement information already gathered for State inventories (e.g., Blackman et al. 1992; 1995, DIWA 2001), or national audits of the condition of freshwaters (e.g., the Assessment of River Condition, Norris et al. 2001).
Ephemeral and intermittent aquatic ecosystems should of course be included.
Criterion 3: The ecosystem is the habitat of rare or threatened species or communities, or is the location of rare or threatened or significant geomorphic or geological feature(s), or contains one of only a few known habitats of an organism of unknown distribution. Protection of rare and threatened species and communities is essential to biodiversity conservation. Entire communities may be threatened where they exist in specialized environments or in places where critical elements of habitat, such as fresh water, are important for human use and are under threat. In an arid country such as Australia, these critical habitat elements are often under heavy pressure and there are numerous examples of localized extinctions of Australian freshwater species or communities (Boulton & Brock, 1999). Even in well-watered areas, damming has led to extinction (e.g., the loss of at least seven endemic macroinvertebrate species in Lake Pedder, southwest Tasmania, for the controversial Gordon River Power Development Scheme (McComb & Lake, 1990)).
Rare and threatened species and communities may be found in highly disturbed ecosystems as well as in undisturbed systems. However, those populations found in highly disturbed systems are at greater risk of localized extinction (Pressey & Taffs, 2001). Protecting threatened species and communities in undisturbed aquatic ecosystems provides an increased chance of maintaining viable populations in natural settings. The concept of rare or threatened geomorphic or geological features is less familiar. The possibility of regenerating such features within human time scales is unlikely. While such features are not usually associated with the provision of ecosystem services, they nevertheless retain high intrinsic value for science and education. The last section of the criteria provides a precautionary approach, particularly for subterranean ecosystems, which are not adequately surveyed at a national scale.
Criterion 4: The ecosystem demonstrates unusual diversity and/or abundance of features, habitats, communities or species. Protection and conservation of ‘biodiversity hot spots’ or sites with highly diverse features is considered one of the most cost-effective ways to conserve a large number of species as well as to protect important ecological processes (Myers et al., 2000; Linke & Norris, 2003). However, processes that yield high species richness (e.g., highly diverse structural habitats in close proximity) may be quite different from processes which produce high site endemism (e.g., geographic or geomorphic isolation, evolutionary refuges). South-western Western Australia is recognized as one of the world’s regional hotspots of terrestrial biodiversity, and evolutionary isolation is a relevant factor in this case.
There is little information in published literature about Australian freshwater biodiversity hotspots. However, studies of subterranean fauna in limestone aquifers of Western Australia have shown unusually high diversity and endemism (Leys et al. 2003; Watts and Humphreys 2003, 2004), and isolated artesian mound springs in Australia’s arid interior are local hotspots of invertebrate endemism (Ponder & Colgan, 2002). At this stage, no freshwater protected areas have been established in Australia solely on the basis of elevated diversity or richness.
Criterion 5: The ecosystem provides evidence of the course or pattern of the evolution of Australia’s landscape or biota. This is an unusual criterion but in an island continent whose evolutionary history has led to remarkable adaptive radiation of species groups over long periods of isolation, protection of the evidence of this process is important. Taxa that are endemic or have Gondwanan affinities are considered to have particular value. Some taxa, such as the lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri) and the mountain shrimp (Anaspides tasmaniae) are of special phylogenic interest and have a very limited natural range, which has been further reduced by anthropogenic impacts.
Protection of evidence of landscape evolution is also important, especially where this has occurred through riverine or subterranean action. Even evidence of water table changes from the structure and formation of carbonate-based materials in caves would satisfy this criterion, although Australia has a poor history of protection of its cave waters (Hamilton-Smith & Eberhard, 2000).
Criterion 6: The ecosystem provides important resources for particular life-history stages of biota. Aquatic ecosystems provide necessary resources (e.g., food, habitat) for particular fauna during certain seasons or critical stages in breeding or migration. Estuarine fish nursery areas (Blackman et al. 1999) and waterbird feeding and breeding grounds in numerous floodplain wetlands, especially across the arid zone (Kingsford, 1995) are key examples of critical habitat for aquatic fauna. Australia has international obligations to protect critical habitat for migrating birds, established by bilateral agreements such as the China Australia Migratory Birds Agreement, and the Japan Australia Migratory Birds Agreement.
Criterion 7: The ecosystem performs important functions and services within the landscape (e.g., refugia, sustaining associated ecosystems). Aquatic ecosystems provide important functions and services at a landscape level, and the identification and recognition of such services is important. Aquatic ecosystems assist in flood mitigation and water supply (for example through groundwater recharge). Aquatic ecosystems reduce levels of nutrients and other organic pollutants through vegetative uptake and sedimentation. They produce food, such as duck and fish. They can produce livestock fodder and timber, and provide habitat for predators of agricultural pests (ibis and grasshoppers, for example).
In an arid continent such as Australia, freshwaters provide crucial refuge environments within the landscape. Even in relatively well-watered areas, refuges during drought or the seasonal dry months in monsoonal tropical Australia enable aquatic biota to persist (Woinarski et al., 2000). These refuges also sustain terrestrial fauna in inhospitable environments because of the presence of water and abundant riparian and floodplain vegetation. Such areas may be threatened both by surface and groundwater extraction. Increasingly, the importance of aquatic corridors (both lateral and longitudinal) for distribution and recolonisation of biota are being acknowledged, even in wetlands that only connect occasionally (Jenkins & Boulton, 2003).