Murray Irrigation Region Aquatic Ecosystem Monitoring Program: Annual Report for 2006

"August 2007".

Project Number: Murray Irrigation Area Aquatic Ecosystem Monitoring project - M/BUS/86.

MDFRC item.

107 pages. 1 of 5 reports associated with project see (Murray Irrigation Region Aquatic Ecosystem Monitoring Program Development 2005: Pilot Study Report), (Murray Irrigation Region Aquatic Ecosystem Monitoring Program: Annual Report for 2007), (Murray Irrigation Region Aquatic Ecosystem Monitoring Program: 2008 Annual Report) and (Murray Irrigation Region Aquatic Ecosystem Monitoring Program: 2009 Annual Report).

The Murray Irrigation Region Aquatic Ecosystem monitoring program aims to establish baseline conditions in the rivers and creeks of the Region and then provide the capacity to measure trends in key components of river health (vegetation, fish, macroinvertebrates and water quality) over the longer term. Ten sites were selected from five water courses throughout the Murray Irrigation Region, two sites on the Murray River, the Edward River, the Wakool River and Billabong Creek and one site on the Niemur River and Tuppal Creek. Justification of the site selection is detailed in the pilot study report (Gigney et al.2007a) and protocls document (Gigney et al. 2007b). This is the first annual report of a ten year monitoring program, covering the sampling periods April 2006 (autumn) and October 2006 (spring). It details the baseline condition of the rivers and creeks in the Region, with particular reference to water quality, macroinvertebrates, fish and riparian vegetation. This report has been constructed in the style of “Smartrivers” reports (L. Benson EM (Ecology Management) Pty Ltd.) as requested by Murray Irrigation. In the results section each site is reported on separately. The overview and discussion section provides some comparisons between sites to permit some understanding of the range of conditions of each of the ecological components within the region. A copy of the data has been provided to Murray Irrigation.