Climate Change Adaptations Options Workshop
Climate change is expected to have major impact on the health of rivers
in South Eastern Australia. So far the emphasis, particularly in the Murray
Darling Basin, seems to have been on environmental flows as a means of
keeping our rivers healthy but what other options are there and are they
practical and cost-effective?
With this thought in mind, the
Institute hosted a ‘Low-risk Climate
Change Adaptation Options’
technical workshop focussing on
river management, at the Lake
Hume Resort, May 7 to 9.
The workshop was attended by
24 scientific experts including
representatives from the three
Catchment Management Authorities
where the options are to be tested,
the Murray Darling Basin Authority,
and government agencies.
“A lot of things catchment
management authorities are doing
already, everyday management
actions, haven’t been thought of
as climate change adaptations
but they could well be,” says
conference organiser and ILWS
post-doc Anna Lukasiewicz. “Other
than using environmental flows and
engineering approaches to help
conserve freshwater ecosystems,
there are complementary proposed
actions that may improve how
these ecosystems adapt to climate
change.
“During the workshop we
investigated the other things we can
do, specifically how practical they
are and how applicable they are
to the three catchments we have
selected.”
The workshop was an integral
part of Anna’s research project,
‘Identifying low risk climate
change mitigation and adaptation
in catchment management
while avoiding unintended
consequences,’ with principal
investigator Institute director Prof
Max Finlayson and co-researcher
Dr Jamie Pittock, from ANU. The
project is funded by the National
Climate Change Adaptation
Research Facility.
The three Catchment Management
Authorities involved in the project
are the Goulburn Broken in
Victoria and the Lachlan and
Murray in NSW. The workshop
is being followed by stakeholder
interviews, smaller workshops in
each catchment and a report with
recommendations.
“What I am looking at is ways
of avoiding mal-adaptation
to climate change,” explains
Anna. “Mal-adaption is where
you take action that might have
negative consequences. For
example, people adapt to warmer
temperatures by using their airconditioners more but that just
causes more greenhouse gas
emissions.”
Some of the options considered at
the workshop were:
• Environmental flows
• Environmental works and
measures
• Thermal control of river
temperature
• Fish passages and dam
removal
• Riparian re-vegetation
• Geomorphic restoration
• Conservation of targeted
areas which are important
for biodiversity
Workshop participant Fin Martin,
water theme leader with the
Lachlan Catchment Management
says, by attending the workshop,
he was able to give the Lachlan
CMA’s perspective and discuss its
thoughts/actions on climate change
adaptation.
“Essentially the workshop was
about looking at what we are doing
already; what options there are
for the future; and a discussion of
those options (are they relevant or
not, are they easily implemented
etc.) says Fin. “The benefit to us is
that it is a bench-marking exercise
comparing what our thinking and
programs with other CMAs and
organisations throughout the Murray
Dr Jamie Pittock presenting to the group during the workshop
Darling Basin. It is important in that
way because there are potential
opportunities not only to learn
from others but also to implement
different programs to achieve better
outcomes.”
That idea of learning from each
other and comparing programs
and activities was also picked up
by Sarah Ning, waterways project
officer – wetlands with the North
East Catchment Management
Authority (NECMA) in Victoria.
Even though NECMA isn’t directly
involved in the project as Sarah
says its shares a boundary with
the Murray CMA to the north and
the Goulburn-Broken CMA to the
east and a lot of things that NECMA
does would impact, in particular,
on the Goulburn-Broken region and
also on the Murray region to an
extent.
“Some of the projects we are
implementing in our region are
in relation to having to deal with
climate change and its impacts on
our environmental assets,” says
Sarah. “Taking part in the workshop
has been a really interesting
exercise in terms of you don’t
always think of all the things that
need to be considered in your
region with regards to impacts of
“
Essentially cold water
pollution has a fairly
large impact on the
ecology of Murray
Darling Basin Rivers...
and the various
options to address
this issue are all fairly
expensive.
”
climate change. It has allowed me
to broaden my thinking.”
Sarah also sees it is important for
the CMAs to work together in terms
of how they deal with the impacts of
climate change and the actions they
implement.
“That shouldn’t stop at the
boundaries of our respective CMA
regions,” says Sarah.
Sarah says the workshop, because
of its length, provided a good
opportunity to talk about climate
change and its relationship to river/
wetlands management in depth.
“There was an opportunity to
discuss particular actions and
what they mean for you particular
catchment area,” says Sarah. “One
of the things that struck me was that
we [as in the different CMAs] have
a lot of similarities in terms of what
we are dealing with and how we are
dealing with them. That reinforces
for me that we need to be sharing
knowledge and information and
working together.”
Examples of these similarities were
the restoration techniques used and
why; the type of assets the CMAs
are working to protect or prioritise
for protection; and key issues such
as the management of carp and
physical barriers and the impact
they have on fish migration.
“One of the things that impressed
me in one of the presentations was
the use of a web-based plan for
the management of environmental
flows,” says Sarah.
“Providing shading along rivers by
planting more trees along riverbanks
helps lower water temperatures and
could be a simple way of tackling
climate change impacts ,” said Ms
Lukasiewicz. “So we want to look
at where that is practical to do,
how many kilometres you need,
and which species in the river will
benefit.”
Breakout Session Workshops
As part of the workshop,
presentations were given on the
various options being considered.
The senior fisheries conservation
www.csu.edu.au/research/ilws
manager with NSW Department
of Primary Industries, Allan Lugg,
gave two presentations, one on
cold water pollution from large dams
caused by low-level off-takes; and
the other on weirs and other fish
passage barriers.
Allan Lugg, NSW Department of Primary
Industries and Sarah Ning, NECMA
“Essentially cold water pollution has
a fairly large impact on the ecology
of Murray Darling Basin rivers and
while there are various options to
address this issue they are all fairly
expensive,” says Allan.
“We [as in the NSW Government]
are still trying to implement a
program to address that issue. “
The problem can be addressed
by having water storage off-takes
at various levels but as Allan
explains: “You are talking millions of
dollars per each site.” Thus far, this
‘engineering solution’ to the problem
hasn’t been applied to any of the
major dams in the Murray-Darling
Basin. However higher off-takes
have been installed on Jindabyne
Dam, inthe Snowy Mountains, and
Tallowa Dam in the Shoalhaven
Shire.
Regarding fish passage barriers,
Allan says there are thousands of
weirs throughout NSW and the
Murray Darling Basin and tens of
thousands of road crossings which
are potential fish passage barriers
because of poor design.
“Bridges are generally not a
problem,” says Allan. “It’s culverts
and causeways where a big river
has to go through small pipes.
The options there are removal
of redundant structures and
modification of those structures that
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are still required, which is something
we do a lot of, for example
changing small piped culverts into
big box structures.”
With regards to weirs, Allan says a
variety of fishways and fish ladders
have been constructed over the last
15 to 20 years.
“The height of the weir is the
determining factor as to what
you would build,” says Allan. “A
big fishway on a big weir is an
expensive thing...you are talking five
or 6 million dollars.”
Allan says generally speaking the
fishways and fish ladders have been
effective.
“Some of the early fishways were
designed for salmon and trout
which don’t work for Australian
native fish,” says Allan. “There’s
been a lot of design done on
modifying them to make sure they
are appropriate for Australian native
fish.”
Allan says attending the workshop
had given him a better appreciation
of the nature of the problem and the
suite of potential tools that might be
used to help address/adapt to it.
Another adaptation option explored
at the workshop was the use of
riparian revegetation to help counter
one effect of climate change, an
increase in river and stream water
temperatures.
“You can use riparian(the
vegetation along the banks of
rivers) replanting to control how
much shade you get over the
rivers,” says workshop’s presenter
Prof Peter Davies, a freshwater
ecologist from the University of
Western Australia. (Peter is involved
in two other NCCARF projects
www.csu.edu.au/research/ilws
including a project on climate
change adaptations for freshwater
ecosystems.
“By doing that you can keep the
rivers cool enough to enable
animals to persist. What we have
found is that shading has a big
influence on water temperature so
by being smart about where we
replant and by prioritising where we
replant, we can have improvements
along the whole river system. ”
He recommended planting along
the parts of rivers and streams that
get lots of sunlight i.e. creeks than
run east west, and concentrating
on north banks “as the further south
you go the more important the north
bank becomes in terms of getting
shade over the river.” Other general
principles to use to help prioritise
areas for riparian restoration were
to restore upland streams before
lower rivers; and to restore stream
reaches with negligible vegetation
before trying to improve those with
low density or degraded vegetation.
“From the research we’ve done
we found that a lot of our animals,
especially our old animals which
evolved when Australia was part of
Gondwanaland like our insects and
fish are really quite sensitive to high
temperatures,” says Peter.
“We really need to keep these
rivers cool given the predictions of
climate change which include a two
degree rise in temperatures up until
2050, a decrease in flows and an
Professor Peter Davies from Uni WA
increasingly harsher environment
for the plants and animals to persist
in. What we are trying to do in
more technical terms is build a
bio-physical envelope to create
conditions that are going to be more
suitable for a different future to what
we have got now.”
While much of the research done
on this was in WA Peter says it
does apply else. “There are general
principles about how you can keep
water temperatures down which are
applicable globally,” he says.
“The critical part for us is making
sure the community is with us,”
says Peter. “That’s why it is so
important to work with CMAs and
the people who actually do the onground works. We want to translate
the science into management.”
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