Bellingen Riverwatch releases 5-year data report
“Are our rivers healthy?” is one of the most commonly asked questions of Bellingen Riverwatch volunteers and partners. Bellingen Riverwatch is a local citizen science program that sees 60- volunteers and 14 steering committee partners working together to test our rivers health - this program has become one of the largest citizen science water quality monitoring programs in NSW and the largest citizen science macroinvertebrate monitoring program in Australia.
This month, Bellingen Riverwatch is releasing it’s 5-year data report. The overall condition of rivers across NSW is moderate, according to NSW State of Environments website, however, Bellingen Riverwatch data (2017-2022) indicates that the condition of the rivers in the Bellinger and Kalang catchments is far from moderate, and are in very good health. It supports BR partner’s understanding that these are very unique rivers and some of the healthiest rivers in Australia.
“With water quality data, the Bellinger catchment scored 90% and the Kalang scored 94%; our macroinvertebrate (waterbug) data indicates relatively healthy to very healthy macroinvertebrate communtities, our Platypus eDNA data tell s us that this region is a stronghold for the platypus, and our pesticide data tells us that no pesticides were detected in the seven sites sampled.”
- Sam Daykin, Bellingen Riverwatch Coordinator.
“Despite these fantastic results, there are four main areas of concern arising from this data: 1) Upper Bellinger River; 2) Summervilles Road; 3) Caratti Creek; and 4) Spicketts Creek.”
- Justine Elder, River and Biodiversity Officer, Bellingen Shire Council, Bellingen Riverwatch Steering Committee member.
The first recommendation in the report is to protect what we have. Caring for the environment doesn't only look like improving areas of poor health.
“In terms of stream health it is usually more effective to protect (preserve) reaches of stream that remain in good condition, than to spend huge amounts of money trying to rehabilitate reaches that are already damaged. Similarly, it is usually more efficient to stop a stream deteriorating than to try to fix it later.”
- Rutherford (1999)
“There are opportunities to protect Australia’s most important aquatic areas so that future generations do not have to pay the high costs of rehabilitation (e.g. as has happened for the River Murray)".
- Kingsord et al (2005)
The Bellingen Riverwatch Steering Committee believes that the residents of this area, and the tourists that visit these river systems are facing this opportunity here now.
They ask all residents and tourists to work together to protect these special river systems. For the diverse species that rely on these rivers now (such as the critically endangered Bellinger River Snapping Turtle), for the ecosystems downstream, and for future generations.
The three key takeaways of what we can do to help, as outlined in the report, are:
Continue collecting data - an important aspect of protecting pristine rivers includes long term data collection.
Continue regenerating the riverbank - The report recommends 20 metres of good quality riparian zone along all rivers in both catchments (with the exception for where structural works are required).
Undetake further investigation - Three areas of further investagation are recommended: 1) The origins of high phosphorous at Upper Bellinger sites (B1, B2, B2.1, B3, B3.1); 2) The potential sources of elevated levels of phosphate and turbidity and lower levels of dissolved oxygen at B7.1 (Caratti Creek).; and 3)The cause of these continuing poor water quality results at S1 (Spicketts Creek).
Read Bellingen Riverwatch’s 5-Year Data Report here.
Bellingen Riverwatch would not be possible without our incredible family of volunteers and partners. Bellingen Riverwatch would like to thank the NSW Government and its Saving our Species Program, Bellingen Shire Council, Healthy North Coast, Vendart Diagnostics, Vincent Fairfax Foundation, NSW Waterwatch, Bellinger Landcare Inc, EnviroComm Connections and OzGreen; as well as the volunteers who have contributed to the data included in this report:
If you are interested in joining the BR family of volunteers, please contact Sam on sam@ozgreen.org.au.