This project involved a preliminary’ assessment of the social and economic values associated with Australia’s tropical rivers undertaken for subsequent Land & Water Australia investment in its Tropical Rivers Program.
Algal blooms commonly occur in rivers across southern Australia and worldwide. Blooms and their associated biota cause taste and odour problems that are a constant source of complaints to water authorities.
Assessment of water development proposals to date has been hampered by the lack of information that can be used to reasonably estimate the volume of water currently available to the environment and the proportion of that water potentially available for consumptive users.
A Scoping study for Land & Water Australia's Tropical Rivers Program
This report outlines a number of priority areas of research interest arising from the literature reviewed and the interviews of representatives or nominees from Indigenous organisations. They fall under two major themes:
The need for a sound understanding of the current condition of river and wetland environments and their contemporary role in meeting the subsistence and spiritual needs of Indigenous communities. Increased pressure on resources, places, and sites is felt by many groups (more)...
Covering an area of more than 1.3 million square kilometres, the tropical rivers region of Australia includes 55 river basins and extends across all catchments from the west side of Cape York to the Kimberley, through Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. It includes some of Australia’s largest river systems, which are, by area’ the Flinders, Roper, Victoria and Fitzroy Rivers and, by volume, the Nicholson and Mitchell Rivers. This report presents results of a scoping study of (more)...
The purpose of this project was to quantify (a) the environmental impacts and (b) the relative benefits and costs of control of two tropical invasive grasses. The project reviewed the existing studies on the environmental impact of tropical invasive grass…
After the success of the 2008 awards, Land & Water Australia will continue its support of the prestigious annual Australian Museum Eureka Prizes in 2009, and is calling for nominations for the Water Research and Innovation Award.
Any future expansion of irrigated agriculture in Australia is likely to occur in northern Australia. The region of Australia north of the tropic of Capricorn has abundant water resources — over 60% of the nations surface water run-off (NLWA 2001). However, there are concerns that in the rush to develop this new bonanza we will simply make the same mistakes that plague existing irrigation systems. These include: water logging, salinization, soil acidification, erosion, (more)...
The Northern Australia Irrigation Futures (NAIF) project has undertaken a review of research into irrigation mosaics as an approach to irrigation in northern Australia. Irrigation mosaics involve smaller patches of irrigation distributed across the landscape as an alternative to large contiguous areas of irrigation (see Figure 1).
This research has examined the current understanding of irrigation mosaics drawing lessons from ecology, forestry, meteorology and saline (more)...
This project will deliver a framework for use by policy makers, regulators, managers, and investors to ensure irrigation is developed in a sustainable manner across northern Australia. Stage I of the project will involve development of the full project team, key client/stakeholder/collaborative network, and detailed work plan and budget. Stage II will involve carrying out the work plan agreed to in Stage I.
