National coordination of the framework for the assessment of river and wetland health (FARWH) trials
Project details
| Objective: | To contribute to the evaluation of the FARWH and its relationship to existing state and territory river and wetland health monitoring and assessment programs and provide important coordination of the jurisdictional trials of the FARWH. |
| Funding: | $210,000 plus applicable GST from the Australian Government. |
| Jurisdiction: | National |
| Commenced: | May 2008 |
| Completion: | June 2011 |
Progress
About the project
The National Framework for the Assessment of River and Wetland Health (FARWH) was developed as part of the baseline assessment of water resources for the National Water Initiative - Australian Water Resources 2005 (AWR 2005).
FARWH was developed in response to the lack of nationally comparable data on river and wetland health in Australia. Its development establishes a national river and wetland health reporting system that will allow comparable assessments within and between jurisdictions for future national reporting purposes.
The six elements of river and wetland health that are measured under the FARWH are:
- hydrologic disturbance
- water quality and soils
- aquatic biota
- fringing zone
- physical form
- catchment disturbance.
As part of the AWR 2005, trials of FARWH were conducted against existing river health monitoring programs in Tasmania and Victoria. Further trials across different regions and development of FARWH for wetlands were recommended to develop its national application.
Funding for four additional trials was approved under the Raising National Water Standards (RNWS) program and those trials have been conducted against river and wetland health monitoring and assessment programs in Queensland, Western Australia, New South Wales and across northern Australia's wet/dry tropics.
This project will contribute to the evaluation of the FARWH and its relationship to existing state and territory river and wetland health monitoring and assessment programs and provide important coordination of the jurisdictional trials of the FARWH. Through the development of a high-level National Technical Steering Committee, the project's work plan will be implemented to provide:
- independent scientific advice to the Commission on the progress of trials
- technical guidance and communication linkages for the trials
- synthesis of the key findings and recommendations for the development of a refined FARWH model
- coordination of an independent international and Australian scientific peer review of the refined FARWH model.
These outcomes will contribute to FARWH policy development being undertaken by the Australian Government and assist in the development of a case for the national adoption of the FARWH.
The adoption of FARWH will provide improved capacity to undertake consistent river and wetland health assessments that are nationally comparable and can serve national reporting requirements.
Project benefits
This project will advance the RNWS priority for water-dependent ecosystems of integrating monitoring processes and systems to assist in enhancing aquatic ecosystem knowledge. The project further aligns to the National Water Initiative (NWI), by addressing several NWI objectives. They include:
- Objective (iii) - statutory provision for environmental and other public benefit outcomes, and improved environmental management practices
- Objective (iv) - complete the return of all currently over allocated or overused systems to environmentally sustainable levels of extraction.
The project is also consistent with key recommendations of the NWI Biennial Assessment. Recommendation 1.4:
- the development of "nationally coordinated actions to improve and harmonise river health and groundwater ecosystem monitoring and assessment to enable the states to incorporate information from this monitoring into their adaptive management frameworks."