Moreton Bay Regional Council Waterway Health Monitoring Program

Coverage

The map below highlights the areas where sampling has occurred for this program.

Click on the map to view information about the drainage basins in this area.

Download boundary KML

 

Brisbane

Maroochy

Mary

Pine

Program start date

1991

Program end date

Ongoing

Objectives of the program

This program aims to:

• monitor the ecosystem health of waterways within the Moreton Bay region to produce stream health maps for strategic infrastructure and town planning

• track the effectiveness and performance of management initiatives under the Total Water Cycle Management Plan.

Who is involved?

Lead organisation

Moreton Bay Regional Council

Contact details of lead organisation: mbrc@moretonbay.qld.gov.au

Partner organisations

Experts for quality assurance and local consultants

List of indicators monitored

Biological:

• For freshwater streams - macroinvertebrates (species level identification)
• For estuarine waters - phytoplankton (species level identification) - 3 year pilot project until June 2012.

Physical/chemical:

• Temperature
• Conductivity
• Salinity
• Dissolved oxygen
• pH
• Turbidity
• Chlorophyll a
• Total nitrogen
• Ammonium – N
• Nitrate – N
• Nitrite – N
• Particulate – N
• Dissolved organic – N
• Total phosphorus
• Orthophosphate – P
• Particulate – P
• Dissolved organic – P
• Total suspended solids

Sediment samples at selected sites:

• Arsenic
• Cadmium
• Chromium
• Copper
• Lead
• Mercury
• Nickel
• Silver
• Zinc

Scale of program

Local government area

Brief description of sampling locations

About 900 kilometres of freshwater streams in the Moreton Bay Regional Council local government area are monitored at 160 sites over a four-year cycle. An extra 20 sites in this area monitored about 115 kilometres of estuarine environment on a quarterly basis from July 2009 to June 2012.

Frequency of monitoring

Variable

Where is the program reported?

Moreton Bay Regional Council

Last updated: 22 March 2013