The stream flow pattern in the Mount Lofty Ranges has been disrupted by unregulated farm dam development and watercourse diversions, particularly for low flow components of the flow regime and outside the high flow season. This change in flow pattern has negative consequences for local water dependent ecosystems, as the missing parts of the flow regime often provide and maintain refuge habitat and water requirements for plants and animals including triggers for breeding and dispersal. Many of these catchments do not have large storage reservoirs that large-scale environmental flow releases can be made from, and for those that do, they are lower in the catchment where the releases won’t benefit upstream ecosystems.
One potential solution being trialed to support water dependent ecosystems is manual release of water from private farm dams by landholders across the landscape, as a broad-scale environmental flow release created from many sources. We report on the development of rules for the release of water from farm dams across trial catchments in the eastern Mount Lofty Ranges to maximize environmental benefit, while considering water security outcomes. This broad-scale manual release approach may add another option to the flow management toolkit that is relatively low cost and encourages community participation in the solution. Investigations continue and will inform applicability in other catchments with varied flow conditions.