Since 2000, the South-east Queensland (SEQ) Ecosystem Health Monitoring Program (EHMP) has assessed the pressures facing the regions waterways with findings communicated annually through the SEQ Report Card for waterway health. When first established, the EHMP was recognised as a world-class environmental monitoring and reporting program. Nowadays, EHMP is one of the most consistent, comprehensive, and longest running ecosystem health monitoring programs in Australia, and indeed the world. The program monitors freshwater, estuarine and marine health of SEQ’s waterways and provides a growing 20-year dataset overview of regional catchment health.
The freshwater EHMP was first implemented in the Austral spring of 2002 with data then collected twice yearly (austral spring and autumn) from 135 sites until 2014. The program measures 12 indicators to assess the health of the freshwater streams and rivers, these indicators are then condensed into four stream health indices (Fish, Macroinvertebrates, Ecosystem Processes, and Water Quality). In 2015, an integrated monitoring and modelling approach was implemented for the SEQ Report Card. Since then, field data have been collected once per year (austral autumn) at 76 of the original sites, with the full 130 sites sampled on a 3-year rotation. A Stream Health Model, built using the original 14 years of monitoring data, is then used to estimate the score for stream health indices at all sites (sampled and not sampled).
With two decades of trend information, we can track freshwater ecosystem health, regardless of extreme weather such as drought and floods, which are part of the natural weather variation in SEQ and are critical to the integrity of freshwater ecosystems. This long-term dataset is used by researchers, managers and the wider community to raise awareness about the health of the regions waterways to managers, politicians and the wider community and importantly informs policy and management.