The Department for Environment and Water (DEW) has wrapped up a nine-year Riverine Recovery Project (RRP) on wetlands and floodplains along the River Murray.
Spokesperson for DEW, Glenn Shimmin said the Department’s Final Report for Riverine Recovery Project highlighted that the RRP had boosted the ecological health of wetlands which had helped maximise water available to the environment by reducing evaporative losses.
“These results are really pleasing as it shows we’ve been able to address river health by enabling more effective use of environmental water and build better resilience in the River in South Australia” Dr Shimmin said.
“Under the RRP, initial feasibility investigations were conducted at more than 100 wetlands along a 400 kilometre section of the River Murray,” he said.
“From the initial list, work was undertaken on either revising wetland management regimes or constructing wetland regulating infrastructure at 47 different wetlands.”
Dr Shimmin said the RRP had allowed for the transfer of 7.245 Gigalitres (GL) of water allocation to the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder by using infrastructure to manage inflows to wetlands and reduce annual evaporative losses.
He said another key achievement from the RRP was the delivery of improved in-stream connectivity and flow at both the Pike and Katarapko floodplains.
“What we’ve seen as a result of these investments is a distinct improvement in transport of nutrients and fish passage at these two key locations as well as improved aquatic, riparian and terrestrial fauna habitats,” he said.
The RRP was a nine-year project delivered across multiple phases, from 2011 to 2019, with funding from the Federal and State Governments.
The DEW’s 146-page Final Report can be downloaded at this PS News link.
