Motivating management of riparian vegetation is critical to protecting waterway health. The South East Queensland Report Card has been monitoring changes in local waterway condition for 22 years. This is communicated to the public every year. In 2015 an indicator for riparian vegetation was introduced, with the aim to raise awareness about the relationship between land management and waterway health; and to facilitate improved policy and management.
Riparian vegetation is a critical component of a waterway. It provides habitat and connectivity for biodiversity and nature conservation; prevents erosion of riverbanks; and filters sediments, nutrients and pathogens from entering waterways.
Significant investment is made every year into managing waterways, including riparian replanting, weeding and bank stabilisation. However freshwater habitats are under increasing threat from physical removal of riparian vegetation associated with population increases, pollutant loads from changing catchment land uses, and extreme weather events.
Motivating effective riparian management is critical to preventing ongoing declines in waterway health and building resilience into the future.
Traditionally riparian vegetation data has been limited in temporal and spatial scale, limiting our ability to monitor and report on the state of riparian zones across the whole-of-catchment and region. However, with ongoing advances in remote sensing, data on the characteristics of the riparian zone are now available at improved scale and frequency to provide powerful assessment of riparian vegetation for across waterway reaches and whole of catchment areas.
A framework for scoring, benchmarking and reporting riparian condition and tracking management success was developed in collaboration with academics and experts in the fields of freshwater ecology, natural resource management and remote sensing. Data generated supports regional, catchment and reach-scale strategic decision-making for riparian protection; and is used to celebrate and motivate achievements in vegetation protection and restoration via the Report Card.