River restoration - Demonstration reaches in the Murray-Darling Basin

Seven 'Demonstration reaches' have been established throughout the Murray Darling Basin to trial and evaluate the implementation of the key driving actions of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority's Native Fish Strategy (NFS) which include:

Using on-ground community-driven rehabilitation, the demonstration reaches measure rehabilitation success for native fish recovery against well-defined targets. This information is then used to adaptively manage activities.

Lessons and Limitations

  • River restoration is a long term challenge due to high levels of ongoing disturbance, permanency of many dams, weirs and irrigation, high vulnerability to pest species and the many (often competing) demands upon a river.
  • Conversely, rivers link people and environments and as such, small but continuous improvements can have cumulative effects to increasingly achieve recovery.

Read more:


Demonstration reaches EMR feature
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1111/emr.12092/

Monitoring in demonstration reaches
https://site.emrprojectsummaries.org/2014/01/25/establishing-a-framework-for-developing-and-implementing-ecological-monitoring-and-evaluation-of-aquatic-rehabilitation-in-demonstration-reaches/

Native Fish Strategy - first 10 years
http://www.mdba.gov.au/publications/mdba-reports/native-fish-strategy-murray-darling-basin-2003-2013

Sea to Hume Dam Fishways
http://www.mdba.gov.au/publications/mdba-reports/sea-hume-dam-paper

Example featured below:
Condamine Catchment, Queensland, Australia:
https://site.emrprojectsummaries.org/2016/03/05/dewfish-demonstration-reach-restoring-native-fish-populations-in-the-condamine-catchment/