Mapping the current condition of River Red Gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis Dehnh.) stands along the Victorian Murray River floodplain (original) (raw)

Water Sharing Plans require ecosystem function and diversity to be preserved through river operating rules and their implementation. To aid effective implementation wetland monitoring methods should be rapid, and allow representation of function and diversity over relevant times and space. We consider this for monitoring methods used for environmental flow assessment in Murray Darling wetlands (southeast Australia). Each wetland is unique in terms of species composition, chemistry, geomorphology and flow regime; and all of these measures have unique responses in time and space. This study assesses rapid assessment approaches for groundcover based on previous data and, for river red gums, photos, to inform wetland health for real-time water management. The rapid assessment method records higher plant species richness compared to a more time-consuming transect method; especially in sites with greater species richness. Tree health measures are likely to help assess not just tree health...