2021-03-22
Thanks to data collected by more than 200 volunteers, the 2020 Catchment Health Indicator Program (CHIP) report has highlighted the health of the ACT region’s waterways during challenging conditions last year.
“Volunteer citizen-scientists play a major role in maintaining the health of our environment,” Minister for Water Shane Rattenbury said.
“This CHIP report is a key tool to provide community and the ACT Government with a better understanding of the health of our water, waterbugs and vegetation.
“The 2020 report, which is the sixth annual report of its kind, is based on 1,872 water quality surveys, 184 waterbug surveys and 219 riparian condition surveys conducted by over 200 volunteers.
“I want to thank these dedicated volunteers for the thousands of hours of work that went into this important report despite bushfires, severe rain events and the COVID-19 public health emergency.”
Across the 229 surveyed sites in Cooma, Yass and across Canberra, 40 report cards received an excellent or a good mark, 55 were marked as fair, while three received a poor result. None were rated as degraded.
The report found that the upper Murrumbidgee catchment was impacted by bushfires in the 2019/20 summer, as the timing of the rain following the fires had a devastating impact on our waterways with sand, soil and ash from the fresh fire grounds being washed into our systems.
The report also found that 2019 was the driest year on record, so when the rains came in 2020, much of the organic matter built up in the landscape was washed into the waterways leading to high nutrient concentrations.
“While the range of scores did not change markedly from 2019, conditions influencing the scores most certainly did,” Minister Rattenbury said. “Extended dry conditions could be attributed to many of the results in 2019, but in 2020, either a lack of rain, too much rain or, of course, bushfires, played a role.
“Thankfully, many waterways started to improve as the high flows continued throughout the rest of the year, and hopefully we will see continued improvements in 2021.”
Quotes attributable to Bruno Ferronato, Ginninderra Catchment Group Waterwatch Coordinator
“Last year saw volunteers monitoring massive changes from dry conditions in January, then bushfires followed by heavy rainfall, covering 11,400 square kilometers across the Waterwatch Program.
“After volunteers were allowed to sample again following the COVID lockdown last year, every single volunteer returned to sample the waterways.
“Across the catchments an impressive 300 volunteers - young and old – also took part in the Platypus Month surveys, discovering 31 individual platypuses over eight ‘river reach’ sites across the ACT region.”
For more information, including the 2020 Catchment Health Indicator Program report, visit the ACT Waterwatch website.