NRW and scheme licence holders carry out monitoring and assessment activities to support the water resource planning process. Each water resource plan (WRP) and resource operations plan (ROP) contains details of the monitoring requirements specific to that catchment.

Departmental monitoring and assessment

The department:

• monitors stream water quantity and quality at critical locations
• monitors and assesses aquatic ecosystems.

Streamflow

NRW's extensive network of stream flow monitoring sites across the state includes about 400 surface water gauging stations and 6000 monitoring bores. The flow data from the network is used for the hydrological model in each catchment, which forms the basis for the water resource planning process. The network is also used to:

• monitor water quantity, and the condition and trend of water quality
• monitor compliance with resource operations plan requirements
• inform decisions on day-to-day management, e.g. making water harvesting announcements
• provide information for flood warnings

Much of this information is now available online

• View current (real time) monitoring data.
• View historical streamflow data on WaterShed.

Aquatic ecosystem monitoring and assessment

The department is responsible for implementing an environmental flows assessment program to assess the ecological performance of each water resource plan in meeting its stated ecological outcomes. Ecological outcomes for each water resource plan have been determined in conjunction with a technical advisory panel, which considered the current impact on the environment by water resource development and the desired ecological state for each plan area. Most plans have both general and specific ecological outcomes for each plan area. General ecological outcomes relate to maintaining the integrity of aquatic ecosystems across the plan area. Specific ecological outcomes relate to particular sections of a water resource plan area and often to a specific species.

Where a particular ecosystem may be negatively impacted upon by changes to flow regimes, performance indicators relating to the level of flow alteration are set in specific locations in the plan area as a way of managing the water resource. The premise is that by meeting these flow objectives, the ecological outcomes of the plan will be provided for in terms of flow. The environmental flows assessment program (EFAP) has been developed to confirm these assumptions using selected ecological assets representative of each ecological outcome.

The purpose of the Environmental Flows Assessment Program is threefold:

1. To confirm the hydraulic habitat requirements of selected ecological assets (representative of ecological outcomes);
2. To determine if current flow management strategies and EFO’s are providing these critical water requirements;
3. To determine the risk to selected ecological assets and evaluate if ecological outcomes are likely to be met under current flow management strategies.

An outline of the process adopted is illustrated in the flowchart below.

Scheme - licence holder monitoring

Scheme licence holders are required to demonstrate their compliance with the flow management and infrastructure operating rules in the Resource Operation Plan (ROP). To this end, they are required to collect and report the necessary data, which may vary from ROP to ROP. The department sets the standards by which the data should be collected and how it should be reported. This information can be found in the Water Monitoring Data Collection Standard (PDF, 307 kB)* and the Water Monitoring Data Reporting Standard (PDF, 385 kB)*.

Scheme licence holders are also required to assess and manage the risk of environmental harm that may result from the operation of their storages and schemes. They are expected to collect and assess all data relevant to the risks being managed. How this risk assessment is undertaken and what information should be collected can also be found in the ‘Water Monitoring Data Collection Standard’.

The scheme licence holders regularly report on the results of their monitoring, with a summary reported in the Minister’s Water Resource Plan Annual Reports.

Aquatic methods

• Aquatic Habitat Assessment for Resource Operations Plan Monitoring (PDF, 182 kB)*
• Monitoring Standard for Blue green Algae (PDF, 198 kB)*

Annual reporting

Progress on the monitoring activities conducted in each catchment will be reported annually in the WRP Annual Report.

Other water monitoring programs

The Department also carries out broader monitoring and assessment activities. Although information from this program may support the water resource planning process, it is not the primary objective. The other major monitoring program is the Department’s ambient monitoring program. This program collects broad-scale data on water quality and biological attributes of the state’s streams. This program is currently under review and the new ‘Stream and Estuarine Assessment Program’ will be piloted in 2007 - 2008.

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