The Gwydir River Selected Area Flow-MER project monitors six scientific ‘indicators’ to help us understand the impact of water for the environment on the landscape, plants, and animals. These include hydrology, waterbirds, fish (diversity and movement), vegetation and food webs. This article covers how we study these indicators and what some of our findings were for the 2021-22 water year.
Have you ever wondered how the Gunambaay (Waterbird) surveys get done, or even what the experience is like? That is what I wondered before I got the chance to go out to the Gwydir Wetlands State Conservation Area in March for the end of the colonial waterbird mass breeding event. May you get a taste for the marvel that are the Gwydir and the Gunambaay that breed there.
We are lucky to work in special places like the Toorale State Conservation Area. Here are some of our favourite photographs we’ve taken over the eight years of the Long Term Intervention Monitoring (LTIM) and Flow-MER programs in the Warrego Selected Area. We hope you enjoy!
We count ourselves lucky to work in beautiful places like the Gwydir Wetlands State Conservation Area. Having been visiting these sites for just over 8 years now, we had a flick through the photo albums and selected a handful of our favourites to share with you. Enjoy!
In late May researchers from across the Northern Murray-Darling Basin came to the University of New England to participate in a two-day forum showcasing the last years worth of new environmental flow related science. The annual forum highlights opportunities for collaboration where we all share the mutual goal of achieving better environmental outcomes through environmental water delivery and management.
Our UNE colleagues studied frogs (Yurraya) in the Gwydir. Surveys found a strong link between watering and frog breeding activity.
Toorale State Conservation Area provides for many significant bird species which rely on water flows through the system, and over the past 8 years of monitoring we have had the pleasure of capturing images and records of many threatened species.
We’ve seen a pretty spectacular response in the fringing wetlands of the Gwydir State Conservation Area, were wetland vegetation species have burst back to life after severe drought followed by back-to-back flooding.
Recognising the dire state of the native Gaygay (Freshwater catfish in Gamilaraay language) in the Gwydir, DPI Fisheries made efforts to boost the Freshwater catfish population in the lower Gwydir by relocating adults from Copeton Dam.
Widespread and enduring inundation of the Gwydir Wetlands has triggered large scale colonial waterbird nesting that is occurring right now in the wetlands for the first time in 10 years!
