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General The Australia-wide Assessment of River Health utilises a rapid, standardised method for assessing the ecological health of rivers, based on biological monitoring and habitat assessment, known as AusRivAS. Sites have been selected with advice from state agencies, local governments, industry, catchment organisations and communities, having regard to key river and catchment management issues. AusRivAS consists of a series of state-specific mathematical models which use field data to predict the aquatic macroinvertebrate families that would be expected to be present in surveyed river sites in a "reference" (that is, pristine or near pristine) condition. These models have been developed using habitat information and macroinvertebrate surveys at approximately 1500 carefully selected reference sites that are in relatively pristine or the best possible condition. River health assessment is based on the differences between what is found at test sites and what was predicted to have occurred there from a set of reference sites with similar geographic, physical, and chemical features. Previous research has shown that various impacts, such as water quality changes, cause the loss of sensitive fauna. A ratio of the observed number of macroinvertebrate families to the expected number of families (the O:E score) can be calculated for each test site. The value of the O:E score can range from zero (indicating no families were found at the site) to slightly greater than one (indicating more than the expected number of families were found at the site). The AusRivAS O:E score provides a reliable, integrated
river health indicator that is responsive to a variety of impacts,
including water quality, habitat condition, and changes in flow
regime. The O:E scores are assigned to categories or bands that
describe different levels of biological condition, ranging from
'richer than reference' condition (containing more families than
expected) to 'impoverished' (containing very few of the expected
families). These bands provide a 'biological health report' of the
overall condition and severity of impact for various sites. This
allows the general health of the river at the survey sites to be
characterised. Aquatic macroinvertebrates are very useful indicators in biological monitoring. They are generally visible to the naked eye and are commonly found in streams. They are an important source of food for fish, and many are well known to anglers - such as yabbies, dragonflies, mudeyes, stoneflies, and mayflies. They are widespread, easy to collect, relatively immobile, and most importantly, they reflect the aggregate of impacts of environmental change on the stream ecosystem. Monitoring sites should be selected to include a variety of sites, representative of the types of waterways, land and water uses, and impacts in each river basin. (Source: http://www.deh.gov.au/water/rivers/nrhp/monitoring.html) Protocols Setting water quality targets Monitoring toolbox Indicators Macroinvertebrates National Water Quality Strategy (monitoring and reporting
protocols) AusRivAS Macroinvertebrate Bioassessment and SIGNAL
II Costs Macroinvertebrate per site.
Case Studies Streamwatch Hornsby Shire Council Morten Bay Waterways and Catchment Partnership (South
East Queensland) South Coast Water Quality Monitoring program Waterwatch Education People Contacts http://www.asl.org.au/asl_volunteers.htm Organisation Contacts Department of the Environment and Heritage NSW Department of Environment and Conservation |
Internal Links Algal Species Density and Diversity Desktop Monitoring Using Satellite Data Fish Monitoring for Water Quality Real-time Water Quality Monitoring
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