Ms BURNET – I note that the State of Environment Report is looking for a comprehensive water management strategy, but I wanted to get on to the issue of river health. Minister, your department spent years working on a landmark report on river health in Tasmania.
When it was finished, the office of former minister Guy Barnett decided the report should never see the light of day, and it wasn’t until the Greens did an RTI while the government was in caretaker mode, that the temporal and spatial patterns in river health across Tasmania and the Influence of Environmental Factors report was released.
That detailed report looked at the period up until 2018 and found serious declines in river health across the state. What have the trends in river health been in the past six years since that report?
Ms HOWLETT – Thank you Chair, and I thank the member for her interest in this. Collectively, Tamania’s water monitoring programs provide wide coverage and long-term monitoring records for Tasmanian catchments. River health is of interest to all users of Tasmanian water resources. Healthy rivers underpin the state’s economy, environment and our way of life.
Since 1994, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania has conducted broad-scale monitoring of river conditions in Tasmania under the river health monitoring program. This monitoring provides important data sets on the health of rivers in Tasmania. The Rural Water Use Strategy is delivering several waterway health projects focusing on enhancing sharing of data information, developing a new statewide water quality monitoring program and enhancing the understanding of the drivers of the river.
Deputy Secretary, would you like to add any more detail to that?
Ms WILSON – Yes. Monitoring under the river health monitoring program has been done on a biennial frequency since 2010. So, the frequency of monitoring has not changed. Importantly, under the rural water use strategy project, we’ve got no drivers of change of the waterway health project. What’s happening is we’re doing a suite of physiochemical parameter testing, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, pH, electrical conductivity and water temperature, along with nutrients monthly at 50 sites across the state between July 2023 and July 2025.
As we’ve noted under the River Health Management Monitoring Program, the above suite of physiochemical parameters are being measured seasonally, biennially, as I said, spring and autumn at 53 long-term monitoring sites. Furthermore, sampling in spring and autumn is occurring also occurring at an additional 28 sites in four case study areas, Upper Ringarooma River, Pipers River, Mountain River, River Leven under the drivers of change and water health project between autumn 2023 and autumn 2025.
Ms BURNET – A point of order, though, and back to my original question, which was: what have the trends in river health been in the past six years? I’m glad to hear all that monitoring of chemicals is occurring as well, but what have been the trends in the past six years?
Ms WILSON – I would have to look at our reporting on the River Health Monitoring Program, but we do put information onto our website. What I can tell you is that the river health project that we’re doing – the drivers of changes in waterway health project – we’ll do that for two years, and that will allow us to do an assessment against the baseline that you referred to.
Preliminary analysis for the first 12 months demonstrate 64 per cent of sites have experienced an improvement or minimal change in nutrient conditions and nutrients since the baseline water quality monitoring program finished in 2003 and 2008 datasets. But it’s the first year of results. We need to wait for the second year of results, and then we’ll be releasing that information, which will then inform the trend data.
Ms BURNET – Okay, thank you. My second question, minister. The department’s own major report on river health showed nearly half of monitoring sites were actually in decline. Much of this decline was in the four or five years leading up to 2018. So, you can see why six years later we were concerned to find out if that trend has continued – very important information.
Does the department have a broad understanding of the statewide trends in river health since 2018, and can they be shared with us, please?
Ms WILSON – The river health monitoring program was set and is done in the biennial frequency and there are some reports that are put out. The purpose of our drivers of change of waterway health project is very specific. It’s been funded by the government to actually look at the drivers of river health change, and that will be informative to the issue you’ve raised.
Ms BURNET – So we can have some information to the committee, please?
Ms WILSON – We’ve got preliminary analysis. We will be looking at the full set of figures, otherwise it’s not robust.
Ms BURNET – Sure. I understand that, yes.
Ms WILSON – What I can also tell you – the minister has mentioned this – is that we are doing a new statewide water quality monitoring program design. It’s really important because we’ve reported at previous committees that we were looking at a river health water quality monitoring program, but we’re looking at a broader suite, and the reason we’re doing that is we’ve spent quite some time reviewing data from members of the Data Custodians Working Group to see what actual information is available. Taking that, we’re expecting to take a design for the water resource monitoring program to the Data Custodian Working Group over the coming months. It’s a very exciting time in water. Thank you.
Ms HOWLETT – It is and just to add to that, Chair, we’ve got 15 key projects that are currently underway, including initiatives to improve river health, groundwater assessment and to review the science underpinning our water allocation framework. Thank you.
