CURRENT RESEARCH PROGRAMS
Program 6: River Restoration
Program Leader: Dr Michael Stewardson,
The University of Melbourne.
Program
Projects
Click
here for the current list of Projects for this Program
(2003-2006)
Click
here for completed Projects and their outcomes for this
Program (1999-2002)
Program
Overview
Detailed Information about current projects in
this program is available here
River restoration (used synonymously with
rehabilitation) aims to return natural, environmental
values to streams. There is tremendous enthusiasm to
rehabilitate Australian streams, with at least $50 million
being spent on this activity in Australia each year.
The Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Catchment
Hydrology's River Restoration research program aims
to provide stream managers with tools, and with understanding
of stream processes, that will lead to more effective
expenditure on restoration, and ultimately, healthier
streams.
Stream health is often measured in terms of the organisms
that live in streams, but the health of these organisms
is often the result of physical processes. Thus, the
strength that the CRC brings to stream restoration is
in disciplines that relate to the physical processes:
hydrology, hydraulics and geomorphology.
In 1999, during the initial round of the CRC for Catchment
Hydrology, we completed a National Stream Rehabilitation
Manual in cooperation with the Land and Water Resources
Research and Development Corporation. Volume One of
the manual described a planning procedure for river
restoration and Volume Two detailed a set of tools for
waterway managers (the manual is available through CanPrint,
phone 02 6295 4444, email lwa@canprint.com.au
or it can be downloaded from http://www.rivers.gov.au).
The current CRCs River Restoration research program,
described on these pages, aims to address some of the
knowledge gaps identified in that manual in
preparation for an updated edition.
As part of establishing the current CRC, land and water
managers around Australia identified
three priority areas for river restoration research:
- In Australia, there has been almost
no evaluation of either procedures for stream rehabilitation,
or of the success of restoration projects themselves.
The CRCs River Restoration Program has four
projects designed to evaluate stream restoration planning
and application (Projects 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 and 6.4)
- There is insufficient understanding
of how key river management tools impact on rivers.
Examples include fishway design (Project 6.5), scour
around objects in streams (Project 6.6) and environmental
flow releases (Project 6.7)
- Understanding the process of the
natural recovery of streams (without intervention)
is a foundation of efficient and effective river restoration.
This area of research is incorporated into the CRCs
Land-use Impacts on Rivers Program; Project 2.1 Sediment
movement, physical habitat and water quality in large
river systems. A separate information sheet
on this project
is available.
The links below describe the seven research projects
under the CRCs River Restoration Program. For
more information, contact the Project Leaders listed
after each section or contact the Program Leader:
Dr Michael Stewardson
CRC for Catchment Hydrology
School of Anthropology, Geography & Environmental
Studies
The University of Melbourne Vic 3010
Australia
Tel: (03) 8344 7733
imjstew@unimelb.edu.au
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