Australian River Assessment System: Review of Physical River Assessment Methods - A Biological Perspective
Monitoring River Health Initiative Technical Report No. 21
Publisher:
Environment Australia (Commonwealth)
Others Involved:
Parsons, M., Thoms, M. and Norris, R. University of Canberra
Summary
A review of eight methods for assessing stream condition that can inform local standardised condition assessment protocols. The assessment methods reviewed do not specify stream size requirements and need to be examined in detail.
Availability:
Access this Resource
Search the National Water Commission website http://www.nwc.gov.au for a pdf copy of this report.
Or download from here.
Other access information:
Detailed Description
Despite being somewhat dated this resource is a good reference for those interested in quickly comparing various methods to assess river and stream conditions.
To HCCREMS knowledge, three of the condition assessment methods described by the authors of this review have been applied by, or adapted to suit the needs of local government condition assessment of urban streams and waterways.
• The National Australian River Assessment System (AUSRIVAS) method (Section 2.2) is used to assess the health of a river system by comparing the macrophyte population at ‘test’ sites against identified ‘reference’ sites (ie: sites least impacted by human activity in the study area). A useful flow chart that describes how AUSRIVAS works is given on page 7.
• The Index of Stream Condition (ISC) (section 2.4) has been used by the Victorian Government in response to the increasing need to for approapriate indicators to track environmental condition. This method requires a stream reach to be between 10 to 30 kilometres long of a contiguous (approximately homogenous) stream section. Therefore it may not be applicable at a scale appropriate for local councils. Melbourne Water has developed a variant of the ISC, and is further working on applying it to urban streams (see Related Resources).
• The Geomorphic RiverStyles method (section 2.5) is now being coordinated from Macquarie University, NSW. RiverStyles recognises that there is a link between health of biota and available physical habitat. This method assesses both the physical structure and biological components of a river system.
Stream condition is assessed by comparing the condition of a contemporary stream to an undisturbed reference stream; and can be measured and applied to different scales of a river system.
RiverStyles assessment steps are described in section 2.5.2 and include:
- data compilation and analysis,
- prediction of future river structure,
- prioritising catchment management issues and
- identification of suitable river structures.
River Styles has been applied by the Hunter Central Rivers Catchment Management Association (HCR-CMA) to the Hunter River. (The Hunter River catchment overlaps a number Local Government Areas within the HCCREMS project area). However this assessments do not typically extend to cover smaller order urban streams in these areas. The Sydney Metropolitan CMA has used a variant of the RiverStyles Method, as has the Hills Shire Council (see Related Resources).
The remaining methods reviewed in this document are the HABSCORE (Rapid Bio-assessment Protocols) Survey Method, State of the Rivers Survey, Habitat Protective Modelling and River Habitat Survey.
Section 3 summarises and compares all eight methods. This analysis may assist, in part, local councils to ascertain which condition assessment method might work a local scale for various land uses - particularly in the absence of overarching regional or state guidance or protocols.