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Predicting Water Quality and Ecological Responses

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Predicting Water Quality and Ecological Responses Predicting water quality and ecological responses Final Report Fiona Dyer, Sondoss El Sawah, Paloma Lucena-Moya Evan Harrison, Barry Croke, Alica Tschierschke Rachael Griffiths, Renee Brawata, Jarrod Kath, Trefor Reynoldson and Tony Jakeman PREDICTING WATER QUALITY AND ECOLOGICAL RESPONSES Final report University of Canberra Fiona Dyer, Sondoss El Sawah, Paloma Lucena-Moya, Evan Harrison, Barry Croke, Alica Tschierschke, Rachael Griffiths, Renee Brawata, Jarrod Kath, Trefor Reynoldson and Tony Jakeman Published by the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility ISBN: 978-1-925039-19-1 NCCARF Publication 48/13 © University of Canberra and National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the copyright holder. Please cite this report as: Dyer, F, El Sawah, S, Lucena-Moya, P, Harrison, E, Croke, B, Tschierschke, A, Griffiths, R, Brawata, R, Kath, J, Reynoldson, T, Jakeman, A, 2013 Predicting water quality and ecological responses National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, Gold Coast, pp. 210. Acknowledgement This work was carried out with financial support from the Australian Government (Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency and the National Water Commission) and the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF), ACTEW Water and the ACT Government. The role of NCCARF is to lead the research community in a national interdisciplinary effort to generate the information needed by decision-makers in government, business and in vulnerable sectors and communities to manage the risk of climate change impacts. The authors thank Tim Purves from ACTEW Water for the provision of time series data relating to the management options, David Post (SEACI) for the provision of climate data and advice, Masud Hasan (ANU) and Dario Mavec (ANU) for helping to develop computer codes that are used in the hydrological analysis. We also thank Sally Hatton (UC) for valuable assistance with the water quality modelling, Chris Hepplewhite (ACTEW Water) for supporting the project and providing advice and data, Heath Chester, Darlene Glyde and Nigel Dears (ACT Government) for also providing data. Wayne Tennant (Goulburn Broken CMA) and Pat Feehan are thanked for their support and the provision of data. Frank Stadler and David Rissik (NCCARF) are thanked for their support and encouragement during the project. Brian Bycroft (SEWPaC) and Brendan Edgar (NCCARF) provided valuable comments on drafts and ideas. Anthea Florance (UC) helped in compiling the final report and two anonymous reviewers provided comments and suggestions that have led to the improvement of the report. Ann Milligan (ENRiT) edited the final version and helped us make substantial improvements and Brooke Billett (NCCARF) was tireless through the challenges of publication. Finally, the authors acknowledge the contribution of Richard Norris in starting the project. Disclaimer The views expressed herein are not necessarily the views of the Commonwealth or NCCARF, and neither the Commonwealth nor NCCARF accept responsibility for information or advice contained herein. Cover image © Fiona Dyer TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................................... 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................................................................................. 2 1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 4 1.1 MOTIVATION ....................................................................................................................... 4 1.2 AIM AND OBJECTIVES ........................................................................................................... 4 1.3 APPROACH ......................................................................................................................... 5 1.4 FINAL REPORT STRUCTURE ................................................................................................ 10 2. SCENARIO DEFINITION AND CONSTRUCTION ................................................................ 14 2.1 UPPER MURRUMBIDGEE RIVER CATCHMENT ....................................................................... 14 2.2 SCENARIO DEFINITION: WATER RESOURCE MANAGEMENT SCENARIOS .................................. 20 2.3 SCENARIO CONSTRUCTION ................................................................................................ 20 2.4 OUTPUT SCENARIOS .......................................................................................................... 33 3. SCENARIO ANALYSIS.......................................................................................................... 35 3.1 FLOW MODELLING ............................................................................................................. 35 3.2 PREDICTION OF FLOW REGIME CHANGES FOR THE DEFINED CLIMATE SCENARIOS ................ 39 3.3 PROBABILISTIC WATER QUALITY ......................................................................................... 51 3.4 WATER QUALITY RESPONSES ............................................................................................. 63 4. DRIVER SELECTION AND THRESHOLD DEFINITION ....................................................... 66 4.1 INTEGRATED MODELS FOR PREDICTING MANAGEMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS — BAYESIAN NETWORK (BN) MODELS ............................................................................................... 66 4.2 MACROINVERTEBRATES .................................................................................................... 70 4.3 STATISTICAL METHODS ...................................................................................................... 74 4.4 FISH ............................................................................................................................... 102 5.1 BAYESIAN NETWORK STRUCTURE AND FEATURES ............................................................. 109 5.2 OPERATION OF BNS ........................................................................................................ 122 6. SCENARIO ASSESSMENT ................................................................................................. 129 6.1 SCENARIO ASSESSMENT: STORY LINE RESULTS .............................................................. 129 6.2 STORYLINE SYNTHESIS .................................................................................................... 158 7. TRANSFERABILITY AND REFLECTIONS ......................................................................... 161 7.2 METHODS ....................................................................................................................... 177 7.3 CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................ 181 8. KNOWLEDGE GAPS & FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS ........................................... 185 8.1 IMPROVED HYDROLOGICAL PREDICTION ............................................................................ 185 8.2 LIMITS OF DATA SETS ...................................................................................................... 185 8.3 LIMITS TO METHODS ........................................................................................................ 185 8.4 KNOWLEDGE GAPS AND FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS ................................................... 186 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 187 Predicting water quality and ecological responses i List of tables Table 1. Study objectives and components mapped to sections of the report _______________ 13 Table 2. Average climate data from weather stations throughout the Upper Murrumbidgee catchment (Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM)) _________________________________ 16 Table 3. Legislation and regulations that govern water resource management in the Upper Murrumbidgee Catchment ______________________________________________________ 19 Table 4: Major fires (area burnt >2,600ha) reported in the Cotter Catchment since the beginning of the 20th Century. Source: Carey et al. (2003) _____________________________________ 24 Table 5. Indicators of Hydrological Alteration (Richter et al. 1996, 1997) __________________ 38 Table 6. Maximum points available for each group, across all selected climate scenarios, for the purposes of indicator selection ___________________________________________________ 40 Table 7. Flow stations for each region used in the analysis of the flow regime changes ______ 40 Table 8. Flow Stress Indicators (FSI) (from NRMSouth 2009; SKM 2005) _________________ 42 Table 9. Fifteen regions defined in the Upper Murrumbidgee catchment, based on expert opinion Table 10. Regions of the Upper Murrumbidgee catchment tested using multivariate analysis __ 55 Table 11. Flow categories used in the Bayesian Network ______________________________ 61 Table 12. Threshold values used for the water quality modelling ________________________ 61 Table 13. Upper Murrumbidgee River sites downstream of Tantangara Dam used for model validation ____________________________________________________________________ 62 Table 15. Change in percentage violations for water
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