Clarence Catchment Ecohealth Project: Assessment of River and Estuarine Condition 2014

The development of a standardised means of collecting, analysing and presenting riverine, coastal and estuarine assessments of ecological condition has been identified as a key need for coastal Catchment Management Authorities and Local Councils who are required to monitor natural resource condition, and water quality and quantity in these systems. This project was conducted over an 18 month period in the Clarence catchment and nearby coastal river systems covering 88 sites across 37 river systems to contribute to the assessment of the ecological condition of the catchment.

The Clarence catchment was divided into 4 hydrologic units for reporting; Clarence main stem, Northern Tributaries, Coastal Tributaries and the Mann-Nymboida-Boyd systems. In addition, 5 small coastal systems (7 sites) in the Clarence LGA (but not in the Clarence catchment) were sampled only for water chemistry. The project aimed to

• Assess the health of coastal catchments using standardised indicators and reporting for estuaries, and freshwater river reaches using hydrology, water quality, riparian vegetation and habitat quality, and macroinvertebrates assemblages as indicators of ecosystem health in streams of the Clarence catchment, and
• Contribute scientific information to the development of a report card system for communicating the health of the estuarine and freshwater systems in the Clarence region.