• Drafted 66 SOPs and 15 monitoring protocols which are now going through the approval process including the Animal Ethics Committee. All will go on the DEC website when approved, which will enhance their adoption state-wide.
• Fauna monitoring training courses will be held at the same location as previous courses, as well as continuing with the ‘Western Shield’ long-term monitoring sites.
• Flora monitoring training will be run at a variety of sites that are not long-term.
• Working with community groups to establish baseline monitoring sites for a range of adaptive management projects.
• The Threatened and Priority Flora database is being redeveloped with some 22,000 entries to date. The database has compatible data but no common platform. This is needed so that databases can be aggregated for interrogation and analysis of the information.
• ‘Naturemap’ on the web is being developed and is proving very popular.
• Threatened or priority species and ecological communities require monitoring in their own right but data can be used as indicator species.
• Need to increase the quantity of data held by making online data submission possible.
Attachment 3 Soils RCM update as at February 2009
Project title: Soil condition monitoring across the South West of WA State ID no: 063010
Funding total: $688 000
State agency: Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia (DAFWA) Project manager: Jim Dixon jim.dixon@agric.wa.gov.au 9368 3368 Period: December 2007 to 31 December 2009
Matters for target: Soil condition (100%)
Project outcomes
• To establish the baseline soil condition in the agricultural SW of WA with respect to soil organic carbon, pH, wind erosion and water erosion.
• Establish representative locations for pH and soil carbon monitoring and permanent transects for wind and water erosion.
• Baseline data for all four indicators, using monitoring protocols developed by National Land and Water Resources Audit (NLWRA), will be recorded on the enhanced WA state soils database and shared with the national soils database (ASRIS).
Objectives
The project will establish the baseline soil condition in the agricultural south west of WA with respect to soil organic carbon (SOC), pH, wind erosion and water erosion.
A GIS analysis based on soils, climate and land use will establish approximately seven representative catchments for pH and SOC monitoring. The same approach will be used to establish permanent transects for wind and water erosion.
The existing WA state soils database will be enhanced to receive time series information and these enhancements will be offered to the national soils database known as ASRIS.
Baseline sampling for all four indicators (at time zero, T0) will use the monitoring protocols recently developed by the National Land and Water Resources Audit.
Key investment areas
• Develop the soil condition monitoring methods including documentation.
• Develop standard interpretation, analysis and reporting products on soil condition.
• Ensure that quality assured monitoring data is managed in a centralised database and made available to all users.
• Conduct baseline assessments of soil condition across six catchments as identified in the Soil Condition Project RCM Plan.
• Establish a permanent infrastructure for soil condition monitoring.
Attachment 3 continued…
Progress to date
• All wind erosion transects have been established and are now being sampled on a regular basis. DAFWA is providing the field support staff. A media release has been circulated.
• A draft report of the early field results has been prepared and this highlighted the need for fine tuning in the technique, particularly the reporting.
• The data is now sufficient to be assessed by a geostatistician to determine the adequacy or otherwise of sampling density.
• A hydraulic modeller is assessing ‘SedNet’ for its suitability to WA conditions. This will include the steps required for it to become operational.
• The ‘RothC’ soil carbon model from the UK has been evaluated and a version built on Australian soil types, as requested from CSIRO and the Australian Greenhouse Office.
• Arrangements have been made with the Chemistry Centre WA and with CSIRO to analyse soil samples for pH and organic carbon.
Project title: Estuarine Resource Condition Indicators State ID no: 063011
Funding total: $814 000
State agency: Department of Water (DoW)
Project manager: Malcolm Robb malcolm.robb@water.wa.gov.au 6364 7852 Period: October 2007 to 30 September 2009
Matters for target: Estuarine, coastal and marine (100%)
Project outcomes
Establishing estuarine condition and response to catchment activities by understanding the vulnerability of estuaries and their rate of response to changes in catchment stressors.
Develop indicators for measuring estuarine condition with a focus on sediments and submerged aquatic vegetation which reflect changes in catchment loading and estuarine dynamics.
Establishing programs in estuaries for which baseline monitoring is not undertaken and develop an understanding of how environmental measures relate to catchment management processes including indicators and targets suitable for monitoring efficacy of on-ground works.
Objectives
Estuaries are heavily impacted by both agricultural and urban activities in catchments where NHT funds are invested to correct these impacts. Establishing estuarine condition and
response to catchment activities is complex, although many of the extreme symptoms are now well known such as algal blooms and fish kills. The harder task is to understand the
vulnerability of estuaries and the rate at which they respond to both improvements and deteriorations in catchment stressors.
Estuaries are relevant to other ‘Matters for Target’ areas, such as Nutrients in Aquatic
ecosystems. The funding for the Estuarine RCM component will be used to develop indicators that will be used for measuring estuarine condition with direct relevance to both Matters for Target, with a focus on biotic and non biotic indicators other than water quality. Our experience so far in WA estuaries shows that sediments and submerged aquatic vegetation are important measures of estuarine condition and reflect changes in both catchment loading and estuarine dynamics.
As well as establishing programs in estuaries for which baseline monitoring is currently not undertaken, process understanding investigations will be targeted for estuaries in which baseline information is adequate. With an understanding of how environmental measures relate to catchment management processes (for example how water column nutrient concentrations vary according to the percent of catchment land used for cattle-for-beef farming), indicators and targets suitable for monitoring efficacy of on-ground works can be proposed.
Attachment 4 continued…
Indicators will include submerged aquatic vegetation, sediment health and related biotic indicators (such as zooplankton, as an indicator of grazing pressure) in selected estuaries.
These measures will allow a more holistic approach to measuring ecosystem health rather than simply monitoring changes in water quality.
Key investment areas
• Undertake sediment quality surveys in selected estuaries complementing work already completed in developing sediment indicators.
• Undertake submerged aquatic vegetation surveys in selected estuaries.
• Assess additional estuarine condition indicators that may have applicability over a wide range of estuaries and recommend monitoring programs to suit.
• Compare estuarine indicator approach to Queensland, NSW and especially Victoria to ensure compatibility when compared on a national scale.
• Develop a set of indicators that can be used over the long term from which resource condition targets can be derived.
• Support the development of ‘report cards’ or assessment indices that can be used to report to the NLWRA.