New project to identify waterway sites in need

Do you know of a riparian (waterside) site in need of native rehabilitation on Townsville’s Bohle River, Stuart Creek, or Alligator Creek?

A new project launched this month will be surveying these waterways to assess sites most in need of rehabilitation.

The ‘Riparian Monitoring and Rehabilitation Planning’ project will provide rigorous and consistent condition assessments of riparian vegetation along key waterways of Townsville.

Led by local business Wildlife Surrounds, the project will engage landholders, community groups and Traditional Owners. Risk assessments will identify the willingness and capacity of partners to participate on-ground works such as weed control and revegetation.

A summary and recommendations report will then be made available to help local leaders and community groups select sites for attention and investment.

“This project will give our town an invaluable and scientifically rigorous guide to the sites we need to prioritise to help our waterways,” says Dry Tropics Partnership for Healthy Waters Executive Officer, Kara-Mae Coulter-Atkins.

“All sorts of land and water managers — including Council, developers, conservationists, and community groups — will be able to use the resulting information to plan their rehabilitation.

“This is a brilliant example of smart thinking bringing together the best available technology to give us a bigger and better picture of what our waterways need.”

Interns from James Cook University are supporting the delivery of assessments, and technical expertise behind the Dry Tropics Partnership for Healthy Waters and NRM Regions Queensland is informing its methods.

The project’s site assessments are piloting new methodology to fill an important information gap in the Townsville Dry Tropics Waterways Report Card — adding on-ground site assessment data to ground-truth satellite data on vegetation health.

Submit a site

If you know of a riparian site in need of rehabilitation on the Bohle River, Stuart Creek, or Alligator Creek, contact shakira@wildlifesurrounds.com.au

Another successful Community Action Plan (CAP) project

The Riparian Monitoring and Rehabilitation Planning project is one of three successful projects to receive kickstart funding from the Townsville Community Action Plan (CAP) for Rivers & Reef. CAP projects address waterway issues of priority as identified by Townsville itself; in particular stormwater runoff and climate change. Learn about Townsville tuck shops tackling climate change thanks to the CAP program.

Townsville’s CAP has been made possible by the partnership between the Australian Government’s Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, and is co-led by the Dry Tropics Partnership for Healthy Waters and Reef Ecologic.