Managing environmental flows in an agricultural landscape: the Lower Gwydir floodplain
Final Report to the Australian
Government Department of the
Environment, Water, Heritage and the
Arts
G. Glenn Wilson,
Tobias O. Bickel,
Peter J. Berney,
Julia L. Sisson, 2009
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Full report
- Managing environmental flows in an agricultural landscape: the Lower Gwydir floodplain (PDF - 4,263 KB) | (Doc - 6,687 KB)
Chapters of the report
- Table of Contents, Acknowledgements, Executive summary (PDF - 588 KB) | (Doc - 447 KB)
- Chapter 1 General Introduction (PDF - 266 KB) | (Doc - 318 KB)
- Chapter 2. Review of existing ecological knowledge of the Lower Gwydir aquatic ecology (PDF - 112 KB) | (Doc - 441 KB)
- Chapter 3. Conceptual models of ecological response to flow variability in Lower Gwydir floodplain aquatic habitats (PDF - 97 KB) | (Doc - 335 KB)
- Chapter 4. Design of field sampling program (PDF - 77 KB) | (Doc - 342 KB)
- Chapter 5. Long-term analysis of the effects of inundation and grazing on vegetation communities in the Gwydir wetlands (PDF - 652 KB) | (Doc - 1,007 KB)
- Chapter 6. Wetland vegetation responses to recent Environmental Contingency Allowance releases (PDF - 365 KB) | (Doc - 2,050 KB)
- Chapter 7. Responses of water chemistry, fish and aquatic invertebrates to flow variability in Lower Gwydir channels and floodplain waterholes (PDF - 895 KB) | (Doc - 1,984 KB)
- Chapter 8 Communication of project findings (PDF - 454 KB) | (Doc - 340 KB)
- Chapter 9 Environmental flow management and monitoring in the Lower Gwydir floodplain (PDF - 92 KB) | (Doc - 314 KB)
- References (PDF - 87 KB) | (Doc - 328 KB)
- Appendices (PDF - 1,415 KB) | (Doc - 1,632 KB)
Executive summary
The Lower Gwydir floodplain is recognised for its high-conservation value as aquatic plant and wildlife habitat. This, along with the significance of the terminal wetland areas for water bird breeding, has resulted in parts of the floodplain being included, in the late 1990s, on the List of Wetlands of International Importance under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. However, construction of Copeton Dam upstream in the mid 1970s and subsequent changes to the region's irrigation, grazing and cropping industries has altered flow patterns into the wetlands and placed other pressures on the wetlands and their biodiversity values. The Gwydir Regulated River Water Sharing Plan was developed in the early 2000s, in part to counter further wetland degradation and to establish an allocation balance between consumptive and environmental needs. A broad stakeholder committee (the Gwydir Environmental Contingency Allowance Operations Advisory Committee; ECAOAC), currently administered through the NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water, is the primary mechanism by which the subsequent flow allowance is used for environmental benefit. It is the overarching aim of the present study to determine the ecological responses to flow variability in the Lower Gwydir aquatic ecosystem, and to provide the ECAOAC with a model to guide the effective management of flows to maximise ecological responses in this system.
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