A team of scientists from eWater CRC based in Canberra and at Griffith University in Queensland has won the WaterSecure - Healthy Waterways Research Award for its work on Prioritisation of Catchment Scale River Restoration within Southeast Queensland (SEQ).  

The work is part of a Queensland Government funded ‘proof of concept’ initiative designed to demonstrate that bringing together the best science, planning and on-ground implementation can significantly reduce pollutants entering Moreton Bay.

The team won the award for tools it developed to assist in tracking sediment as part of the four-year Healthy Country project designed to reduce sediments and nutrients leaving the priority catchments of Logan and Brenner Rivers and Lockyer Creek.

The scientists used the data to develop sediment budgets and restoration plans for each waterway - plans which will guide funding for on-ground works to rehabilitate the priority sub-catchments. The plans defined the major erosion processes and sources, and pinpointed the top ten sub-catchments for each area exporting sediment to the Logan and Bremer Rivers and Lockyer Creek.

In accepting the award team leader Prof Jon Olley said: “Moreton Bay is under serious threat. We have to fix the 24000 km of degraded rivers which drain into the Bay. We now have the techniques to target erosion control works. We know what needs to be done. What is required is the political will to provide the $500m required to fix the 24000 km of degraded rivers.

“This may sound like a lot of money but it is less than the cost of 10 km of freeway. Currently as a society we value 10 km of road more than 24000 km of river.”

Prof Olley called on all levels of government to get behind the plan to protect the Bay and to start treating green infrastructure as they treat the nation’s hard infrastructure. “If we don’t we will lose the very reason people move to the Southeast: its natural environment,” he said.

WaterSecure CEO, Keith Davies, said the organisation was proud to sponsor the Research Award category.

“We believe that knowledge leads to better management of our water supplies,” he said.

Contacts:
Sue Bushell, Publications and Media Manager eWater CRC 02 6201 2840; sue.bushell@ewatercrc.com.au

Background

The team

Lead by Prof. Jon Olley, the award-winning team included Emeritus Prof. Calvin Rose, Associate Prof. Francis Pantus, Drs Nina Saxton, Tim Pietch, and Doug Ward, Mr Joe McMahan and PhD student Pat Laceby.

Working to save Morton Bay

Southeast Queensland has one of the fastest growing populations in Australia, currently standing at 2.73 million people. By 2026 this is expected to increase to around four million people. This growth will bring further significant pressures to the health of the region’s waterways. Most of the region’s waterways drain into Moreton Bay and most are in poor condition. Last year for the first time in nine years of monitoring its health, the Bay received a poor health rating, simply because the area received plentiful rainfall. These rains effectively connected the 24000 km of degraded rivers to the Bay for the first time in a decade. As a result, large amounts of sediments and nutrients stored in the catchment were flushed into the clear waters of the Bay, negatively impacting on its health.  

The team of scientists developed methods for targeting the origin of most of the sediments in the catchments. Their results show 80 per cent of the sediment load is derived from less than 10 per cent of the catchment area. Mr Simon Warner CEO of SEQcatchments, which is responsible for the implementation of on-ground works, said “this effectively turns diffuse pollution sources into point sources providing clear targets for rehabilitation works.”

Ecologically sustainable land management demands that the downstream impacts of land usage are kept to a minimum. In SEQ this means reducing the delivery of sediments to streams is a must. Rectification actions aimed at reducing sediment delivery need to identify then target the major sources, transport pathways and storage areas in a catchment. A sediment budget aims to quantify sources, stores and delivery through a catchment. It enables the relative importance of sources to be assessed and rectification actions to be targeted where they will have most effect. The work provides clear indications of where rectification actions should be targeted.

The Healthy Country Project

The Healthy Country project is a Queensland Government funded ‘proof of concept’ initiative to demonstrate that bringing together the best science, planning and on ground implementation can significantly reduce non-urban diffuse source pollutants entering the waterways. It started in January 2008 with an $8 million investment. Project partners include the SEQ Healthy Waterways Partnership (SEQ HWP), SEQ Catchments Ltd, Queensland Primary Industries and Fisheries (QPIF) Dept of Employment and Economic Development and the SEQ Traditional Owners Alliance (SEQTOA). As part of the project three focal catchments (Figure 1a) have been selected to develop appropriate rehabilitation techniques for the region. These techniques include (i) the development of methods to target the primary sediment and associated nutrient sources, (ii) designing tools that can be used to specify what works should occur where, (iii) trialing different rehabilitation methods and (iv) the development of methods to monitor, evaluate and adapt land and waterways management actions.