Assessment of Information Needs for Freshwater Flows into Australian Estuaries

Citation

Land & Water Australia. 2009. Assessment of Information Needs for Freshwater Flows into Australian Estuaries. [Online] (Updated July 30th, 2009)
Available at: http://lwa.gov.au/node/3491 [Accessed Tuesday 12th of March 2013 02:02:36 PM ].

This report was jointly commissioned by the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation and Land & Water Australia, to assess the information needs for freshwater flows into estuaries.

This report is based on the results of a desk study together with the outputs from an expert workshop.

It has the following objectives:

Create a logical framework showing the potential links between freshwater inflows and ecological responses;
Assess current knowledge about each of these links in Australian estuaries;
Identify the critical links where further research and development (R&D) would provide maximum benefit; and
Collate available information on current decision-making processes/ frameworks for environmental flow management.

Conclusions

In terms of comprehensiveness, the 19 high-priority knowledge needs (see attached report) provide a good coverage of the core components of a research framework into freshwater flows into estuaries. These needs give a reasonable coverage of the major management themes and a good coverage of the major biophysical components of the modified AMF. However, socio-economic and institutional needs were not assessed (apart from those that arose opportunistically) during this study and the full range of research needs for freshwater flows into estuaries should include these additional issues in order to continue to refine the framework for targeting research investment to meet priority policy and management knowledge needs.