Australian groundwater-dependent ecosystems toolbox
Waterlines reports No 69 and No 70 - December 2011
Under the National Water Initiative, all governments across Australia have acknowledged the importance of groundwater and committed to a 'whole of water cycle' approach to planning and managing Australia’s water resources.
Specific actions in the NWI include better understanding the vulnerability of groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs) to changing water management and other external factors, and developing and disseminating methods to deal with those vulnerabilities.
A GDE management toolbox, A Framework for Assessing the Ecological Water Requirements of Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems, was developed in 2007 for Land and Water Australia (LWA). This assisted with the identification of GDEs and managing their environmental water requirements.
Following a collaborative review process with jurisdictions, this report updates the toolbox to encourage its adoption at national level.
The report has two parts:
- Part one focuses on implementing the assessment framework and developing a monitoring and evaluation program to document the requirements of ecological water.
- Part two presents a suite of practical and technical approaches to assist water managers to identify GDEs and determine the impact of changes in groundwater on the state of an ecosystem, or its function.
The report provides a suite of practical and technically robust tools and approaches for water resource, catchment and ecosystem managers to identify GDEs. It will assist them to determine the reliance of those ecosystems on groundwater and understand the possible changes to the ecosystems due to changes in the groundwater environment.
Documents for download
Part one: assessment framework
Australian groundwater-dependent ecosystems toolbox Part one: assessment framework (PDF 2.9MB)
Australian groundwater-dependent ecosystems toolbox Part one: assessment framework (DOC 3.9MB)
Part two: assessment tools
Australian groundwater-dependent ecosystems toolbox Part two: assessment tools (PDF 960KB)
Australian groundwater-dependent ecosystems toolbox Part two: assessment tools (DOC 1.8MB)