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Urban researchIn 1994 a research team funded by Melbourne Water Corporation, as a partner in the CRC for Freshwater Ecology, was established at the Water Studies Centre. The team, led by Dr Peter Breen from 1994 to 2000 and by Dr Chris Walsh since 2001, has primarily concentrated on elucidating the effects of urbanization on the ecology of streams.
Current urban projects
Past projects
Predicting ecological condition of streams in response to urban stormwater managementThis large integrated collaborative project between CRCFE (project D250) and the CRC for Catchment Hydrology commenced in Oct 2003 as a partnership between Water Studies Centre and Department of Civil Engineering at Monash University, University of Canberra, Melbourne Water, Environment ACT and the Brisbane City Council. The project is also associated with a second, smaller project for the NSW stormwater management trust to develop environmental objectives for stormwater management. This project will develop predictive models of ecological condition using the composition of macroinvertebrate assemblages in relation to the density of catchment urbanization (imperviousness) and extent of stormwater drainage connection. These two catchment-scale predictor variables have been selected from conceptual and explanatory models of stormwater impacts on stream ecosystems developed in an earlier CRC FE project on streams in the east of Melbourne. These catchment-scale indicators of urban density and design integrate the multiple confounded stormwater impacts to stream hydrology, geomorphology and water quality. This integrative approach is useful for management because most approaches to stormwater treatment involve reduction in drainage connection, through maximization of infiltration or retention. The indicator of drainage connection will estimate the proportion of impervious surfaces in each catchment directly connected to streams by stormwater pipes, with stormwater treatment structures being assigned an effective level of connection based on their hydrological characteristics. Models will be constructed using sites spanning rural-urban gradients. Because treatment structures will be assigned a level of connection, these models will permit prediction of change in assemblage composition under varying stormwater management scenarios. The resultant models will be incorporated into the MUSIC stormwater management decision support software developed by CRC CH. Urbanisation and the ecological function of streamsThis large integrated CRCFE project (D210) was conducted from Oct 2000 to Sep 2003 as a partnership between the Water Studies Centre, the School of Biological Sciences, the Department of Civil Engineering (CRC CH) at Monash University, Melbourne Water Corporation, Victorian EPA and the Murray Darling Freshwater Research Centre. Urban stormwater is a serious threat to the health of rivers, estuaries and coastal waters around the world, as it carries large loads of nutrients and other pollutants. Two attributes of urban land that explain the stormwater impacts on streams and other waters are the proportion of a catchment covered by constructed hard surfaces (imperviousness) and how efficiently those hard surfaces are connected to receiving waters by stormwater pipes (drainage connection). This project quantified the relationships between these two elements of urbanization on nutrient transport, storage and assimilation in small streams. Other ecological indicators, such as the composition of invertebrate, algal and microbial communities were also being assessed to compare responses of structural and functional indicators of ecological health in streams to urban impacts. Most ecological indicators were broadly correlated with the gradient of urban density, but independent of that relationship, drainage connection explained a large proportion of variation in water quality, algal biomass, the ratio of production to respiration in the streams, macroinvertebrate assemblage composition, and algal assemblage composition. More information on project D210 Experimental assessment of physical habitat restoration in urban streamsThis partnership project with Melbourne Water Corporation (CRCFE Project B705) was conducted from Jul 2000 - Oct 2001 as an extension of an experimental component of an earlier CRCFE project (E301: Biological Assessment and Management of Urban streams). The determination of priorities for waterway management is a central thrust of the WSC's urban research. While studies of regional patterns of community composition identified catchment-scale effects of urban drainage infrastructure as primary degrading influences on in-stream biological communities, much of the operations of urban waterway management involves manipulation of small-scale habitat in-stream. While much of this work is aimed at channel stabilization, there is increasing interest in applying such work to restoring physical habitat to streams. This project experimentally tested the effect on macroinvertebrate communities of restoring habitat in degraded metropolitan streams. Little change to community composition was detected after five years in six introduced riffles, suggesting restoration of such streams would be more effective by first addressing catchment-scale stormwater related disturbances. More information on the habitat restoration experiment Biological assessment and Management of Urban StreamsThis partnership project with Melbourne Water Corporation (CRCFE Project E301) was conducted from 1994-1997. The major part of the project aimed to find the environmental factors that best explained patterns of macroinvertebrate and diatom community composition in small streams across the Melbourne Region. A secondary part of the project was an experiment to test the effects of habitat restoration on macroinvertebrate communities (see project B705). This work pointed to the importance of stormwater impacts in degrading streams with urban catchments, and to the mechanisms driving those impacts: catchment imperviousness and drainage efficiency. The conceptual model forming the basis of subsequent projects was developed from this project. More information on project E301:
An Evaluation of the use of AUSRIVAS models for urban assessmentThis collaborative project, funded through the Urban Sub Program of the National River Health Program, involved the Water Sudies Centre, University of Canberra, Melbourne Water Corporation, and EPA, Victoria was conducted from 1998 to 1999. This study tested the feasibility of developing and using area-specific urban AUSRIVAS models using existing stream macroinvertebrate datasets for the Melbourne metropolitan and hinterland areas. Models were constructed, but the use of sub-optimal reference sites presented some logical flaws, and the models performed no better than regional Victorian models. An alternative approach, using existing regional models in urban settings, was developed. More information on urban AUSRIVAS Yarra River environmental studyThis large multidisciplinary study (CRCFE Project B110) , funded by the CRCFE and Melbourne Water Corporation, was conducted from 1998 to 2000. The major questions addressed by the project were:
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