This project involved event monitoring across the catchment
which utilised community volunteers to identify major contribution
catchments and to validate Sednet.
Increased sediment and nutrient inputs from terrestrial runoff
are major threats to the Great Barrier Reef lagoon. The Burdekin
River is the largest source of sediment and nutrient discharge into
the Great Barrier Reef lagoon, with an estimated average
delivery of 3.77 million tonnes of fine sediment each year.
The community-assisted water quality
monitoring project was established in 2003 for the Burdekin Dry
Tropics NRM to investigate suspended sediment and nutrient
concentrations in waterways throughout the Burdekin Dry Tropics
region. The catchment's large size (133,510 square km), steep upper
catchments and dry tropical environment exacerbated by widespread
grazing all combine to form a system that is highly efficient in
transporting freshwater runoff and associated suspended
sediment and nutrients off the landscape into downstream
environments, including wetlands and the Great Barrier Reef
lagoon.
The project targets wet season rainfall flow
events, which comprise approximately 80 per cent of the annual
discharge from the Burdekin River . Due to the irregular nature of
event sampling, it was necessary to develop a network of landholder
volunteers for sampling, especially where sampling sites were
easily accessible from homesteads on pastorally leased land.
During these flow events community volunteers
collected samples from subcatchment waterways to capture changes
in suspended sediment and nutrient concentrations over
the flow hydrograph. This project successfully collected samples
from the major subcatchments in the Burdekin region (Belyando,
Suttor, Bowen, Upper Burdekin and Cape catchments) over a number of
wet seasons. In the most recent wet season over 30 sites were
sampled, including newly established sites in the 'East Burdekin'
region that flow into the Burdekin River both above and below the
Burdekin Falls Dam. Suspended sediment samples were also collected
from the Burdekin Falls Dam outlet during a 30 day overflow
period.
Project Objectives:
• Quantify
pollutants discharging to downstream aquatic environments
• Identify relative contributions from subcatchments and
land uses
• Increase awareness and ownership of regional water
quality issues within the community
• Ensure scientific design and integrity
• Validate catchment modeling (e.g. SedNet)
