Long Term Intervention Monitoring (LTIM) Project - Fish

Evaluation of native fish diversity, condition, reproduction and recruitment contribute to understanding the benefit of environmental water and to the biodiversity outcomes sought by the Basin Plan.

The CEWO’s LTIM Project examined the contribution of Commonwealth environmental water to the environmental objectives of the Basin Plan 2012 (Basin Plan) and assisted the CEWO to demonstrate environmental outcomes and adaptively manage the water holdings. Monitoring and evaluation was focused in seven Selected Areas: the Junction of the Warrego and Darling rivers, Gwydir river system, Lachlan river system, Murrumbidgee river system, Edward/Kolety-Wakool river system, Goulburn River and Lower Murray River. These areas will continue to be monitored through the CEWO’s Monitoring, Evaluation and Research (MER) Program.

Data collected by monitoring at Selected Areas is used to evaluate local outcomes from watering and also contributed to the analysis and evaluation of Basin Plan objectives.

Fish data was collected over the duration of the LTIM Project from 2014-15 to 2018-19 in all Selected Areas*, including: fish catch, individual length and weight, egg and larval catch, and estimated age of a small subset of individuals.

*Due to the use of different methods to collect data in the Junction of the Warrego and Darling rivers Selected Area, this data has been excluded from the Basin scale analysis (however fish general outcomes are reported).

Please refer to the Murray-Darling Basin LTIM Project: 2018-19 Basin-scale evaluation of Commonwealth environmental water – Fish Report for the detailed method on data used for evaluation.

Acknowledgement

The Commonwealth Environmental Water Office acknowledge the First Nations peoples as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the lands, waterways and skies of the Murray-Darling Basin. We thank them for their knowledge and science and respect their continuing connection to culture and Country and the values reflected in these data.