Framework for prioritising waterways for management in Western Australia Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management University of Western Australia May 2011 Report no. CENRM120 Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management University of Western Australia Unit 1, Foreshore House, Proudlove Parade Albany Western Australia 6332 Telephone +61 8 9842 0837 Facsimile +61 8 9842 8499 www.cenrm.uwa.edu.au This work is copyright. You may download, display, print and reproduce this material in unaltered form only (retaining this notice) for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organisation. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, all other rights are reserved. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to the University of Western Australia. Reference: Macgregor, C., Cook, B., Farrell, C. and Mazzella, L. 2011. Assessment framework for prioritising waterways for management in Western Australia, Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management, University of Western Australia, Albany. ISBN: 978-1-74052-236-6 Front cover credit: Bremer River, Eastern South Coast bioregion in May 2006, looking downstream by Geraldine Janicke. Disclaimer This document has been prepared by the Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management, University of Western Australia for the Department of Water, Western Australian. Any representation, statement, opinion or advice expressed or implied in this publication is made in good faith and on the basis that the Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management and its employees are not liable for any damage or loss whatsoever which may occur as a result of action taken or not taken, as the case may be in respect of any representation, statement, opinion or advice referred to herein. Professional advice should be obtained before applying the information contained in this document to particular circumstances. Acknowledgements This project was funded by the Natural Heritage Trust and the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality. The report was prepared by Colin Macgregor, Barbara Cook and Claire Farrell from the Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management at the University of Western Australia and Lisa Mazzella from the Department of Water. In-kind contributions were gratefully received from natural resource management (NRM) organisations Perth NRM Incorporated, Wheatbelt NRM Incorporated, Northern Agricultural Catchments Council, South West Catchments Council, South Coast NRM Incorporated and the Rangelands NRM Coordinating Group represented on the Technical Reference Group and the steering committee. The following people are acknowledged for their assistance and support during the project: Verity Klemm and Tim Storer (Department of Water). ii Contents Summary ..................................................................................................................... v Background .................................................................................................................................. v The assessment process ............................................................................................................. v Case studies............................................................................................................................... viii 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Background ........................................................................................................................ 1 1.2 Objectives of the framework............................................................................................... 3 1.3 Approach adopted for the framework ................................................................................. 3 1.4 Limitations .......................................................................................................................... 4 1.5 Structure of the report ........................................................................................................ 4 2 Elements of the framework ..................................................................................... 5 2.1 Identifying purpose of assessment .................................................................................... 5 2.2 Selecting an appropriate assessment scale ...................................................................... 6 2.3 Identifying values, criteria, indicators and measures ......................................................... 6 2.4 Identifying threats, indicators and measures ..................................................................... 7 2.5 Scoring values and threats ................................................................................................. 9 2.6 Choosing priorities and management responses ............................................................ 10 2.7 Stakeholder engagement and feasibility .......................................................................... 17 2.8 Designing the management response ............................................................................. 18 3 Values, indicators and measures .......................................................................... 20 3.1 Ecological values .............................................................................................................. 20 3.2 Social values .................................................................................................................... 27 3.3 Economic values .............................................................................................................. 32 4 Threats, indicators and measures ......................................................................... 36 4.1 Riparian zone degradation ............................................................................................... 36 4.2 Erosion and sedimentation ............................................................................................... 36 4.3 Eutrophication and deoxygenation ................................................................................... 37 4.4 Inappropriate fire regimes ................................................................................................ 38 4.5 Pollution ............................................................................................................................ 38 4.6 Introduced animal and plant species ............................................................................... 39 4.7 Salinisation and waterlogging .......................................................................................... 40 4.8 Acidification ...................................................................................................................... 41 4.9 Flow alteration .................................................................................................................. 41 4.10 In-stream habitat destruction and fragmentation ............................................................. 42 5 Case studies ......................................................................................................... 44 5.1 Subcatchment scale: Fortescue River (low quality data) ................................................. 44 5.2 Reach scale: Marbellup Brook (high quality data) ........................................................... 65 5.3 Reach scale: Berkeley River (low quality data) ............................................................... 73 5.4 Catchment scale: South Coast region (high quality data) ............................................... 80 6 General comments and conclusions ..................................................................... 96 Appendix A Contacts ........................................................................................... 97 Appendix B Recommended GIS datasets and other sources of information ....... 99 iii Shortened forms ...................................................................................................... 111 Glossary .................................................................................................................. 113 References and further reading ............................................................................... 115 iv Framework for prioritising waterways in Western Australia Summary Summary Background Based on an asset-threat management approach, and taking into account state and national developments in waterway prioritisation, the Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management at the University of Western Australia on behalf of the Department of Water has developed a framework for prioritising waterways for management in Western Australia. The framework provides a consistent and transparent approach to setting priorities for management. It ranks waterways in terms of their ecological, social and economic values and also according to their level of threat, and based on these rankings, classifies these waterways into broad categories. Appropriate management responses for each of these categories are proposed. The framework can be used at scales ranging from whole catchments down to individual reaches of a waterway. It can be used in situations where data is limited or plentiful, and of both a qualitative or quantitative nature. It also recognises that some natural resource management regions already have processes for prioritising waterways for