Document Actions
04.08.09 TWEED RIVER ESTUARY HEALTH INVESTIGATION REPORT LAUNCHED TODAY
The Tweed Shire Council vision for its waterways is “The Tweed River and its catchment streams will in 2025 be a healthy ecosystem and sustain the livelihoods and lifestyles of the community which cooperates to protect it.”
To
achieve this vision the Council started a project to establish a program to
monitor and report on the environmental health of its waterways using the
International WaterCentre expertise.
The Tweed River Report Card 2009 will be launched on Tuesday 4 August 2009
at 10.00am at Pioneer Park, Kennedy Drive, West Tweed Heads and will show
the results of estuary health investigation of the Cobaki and Terranora
Broadwaters.
The Report Card is a summary of 12 months work conducted by the International
WaterCentre on behalf of the Tweed Shire Council and showcases the
Environmental Health Monitoring Program (EHMP) developed by its Banksia award
winning SEQ Healthy Waterways Partnership, a founding IWC partner.
The Ecosystem Health Monitoring Program (EHMP) is one of the most comprehensive
marine, estuarine and freshwater monitoring programs in Australia.
The document is an accurate and holistic assessment of the ecological health of
the catchment and waterways of Cobaki and Terranora. It contains information
relating to fish communities, seagrass, algal growth and water quality.
The data has been collected monthly from 43 sites from the source to the sea.
Report card grades between A and F have been attributed to eight major areas
within the combined waterways, with an overall rating applied to the freshwater
and estuarine system.
The Report Card communicates the key findings and outlines targets and actions for
improving the health of the Broadwaters as well as rural areas.
The International WaterCentre has coordinated a team of scientists from The
University of Queensland, CSIRO, Qld Department of Environment and Resource
Management and the Tweed Laboratory Centre to produce this work.
The major goal of this launch is to highlight the findings of the assessment to
the community, however, it is also a chance to acknowledge the support and hard
work of those involved in the project and demonstrate the endorsement of the
broad number of stakeholders represented by the Tweed River Committee.
Download the Cobaki and Terranora Broadwater Ecosystem Health Monitoring Program ‘Report Card’
