Lower Murrumbidgee Catchment
First Global HELP Reference Basin

Overview

UNESCO's HELP (Hydrology, Environment, Life and Policy) program is designed to establish a global network of catchments to improve the links between hydrology and the needs of society.

The HELP program is a joint program of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the World Meteorological Organization. It seeks examples of good solutions-oriented science which has already, and can in the future, deliver real outcomes to real people in real catchments, locally as well as globally.

HELP is founded on a global network of catchments that fulfil the HELP criteria for baseline physical and socio-economic data exchange. A new catchment must have adequate local capacity to increase sharing of expertise, to improve access to data and the findings from other HELP catchments, and to provide opportunities for funding and building capacity in water institutions.

There are currently 25 pilot basins selected to demonstrate how HELP principles can be put in practice. These basins are divided into 4 categories based on the level of development in relation to the ideals of bringing all aspects of water use together - people, production, environment, policy and science. Currently there is only one global reference basin, the Lower Murrimbidgee carchment in southern NSW, Australia.

The Lower Murrumbidgee was named as the first global reference basin in 2001. It was selected to illustrate water resources management under competing water uses and environmental and economic concerns in an arid zone, similar to many other catchments in the world.

The Murrumbidgee region's community has been recognised for involvement in cooperative and practical environmental work towards managing water, including hydrological research and integrated catchment management policies in Australia's Murray Darling Basin.

Hydrological projects in the basin illustrate how communities, researchers and regulation bodies are involved in catchment management by developing appropriate GIS, hydrological, hydrologic economic and educational models.

Map courtesy of HELP

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Why the Murrumbidgee?

Science is required to manage the water resource, but it needs to look not just at the water but at the economic, policy and legal aspects. There are many regions in the world where this is done in bits and pieces but in the Murrumbidgee we have managed to pull it all together. UNESCO has been looking for these basins which are applying hydrology as science which is demand-driven by stakeholders. To become a global reference basin you need to be a considerable catchment size and have all those aspects of science and collaboration. - Dr Shahbaz Khan, CSIRO Land and Water

The Lower Murrumbidgee catchment provides an excellent example of community involvement in hydrological research and development of integrated catchment management policies using a range of tools.

The catchment includes a 948 kilometre stretch of river, starting downstream of Burrinjuck Dam (north of Wagga Wagga) and finishing in western NSW where the Lachlan River runs into the Redbank Weir, near Balranald.

Policy-makers, hydrologists and scientists from through the world are likely to travel to the region to learn from local experience over the next few years.

Among the region's projects is a range of innovative hydrologic and integrated hydrologic economic and community education tools commonly known as SWAGMAN (PDF file, 691 kB) (Salt, WAter and Groundwater MANagement models).

The SWAGMAN models were developed by the CSIRO for natural resource management and both the models and the community participation activities can be readily transferred to other parts of the world promoting technology transfer.

The modelling tools and participatory hydrologic research methods used in Murrumbidgee Catchment have been earmarked to be used by communities in Zhanghe Irrigation Area along Yangtze River, Liuyuankou Irrigation Area along Yellow River in China and Rechna Doab in Indus basin through Australian Council for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) projects.

There is also considerable interest in applying these hydrologic economic tools in the Indian and South African Catchments.

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CSIRO Land and Water's involvement

CSIRO Land and Water in Griffith was recently approved to become regional coordinating unit Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, China, India, Pakistan and Philippines by the International Management Committee of HELP. A key criteria for an institution becoming regional HELP Regional Unit is interdisciplinary teamwork and national and international collaboration and impact.

The key responsibilities for Griffith lab will include:

• Represent HELP in the region
• Provide regional HELP 'vision' consistent/supportive of HELP principles
• Disseminate HELP activities/program
• Clearing Houses to HELP basins groups in the region (funding, meetings, other opportunities/ country, regional, global)
• Provide a permanent forum for HELP basin networking in the region
• Provide advice to present HELP basin on actions to improve their HELP standards: mentoring/ guidance/ supportive function
• Provide guidance for potential HELP basins enrollment
• Coordinate the review process for potential HELP basins in the region – disseminate applications to other regions for review
• Liaise with FRIEND office in the region, where appropiate
• Coordinate activities/initiatives at the regional level
• Facilitate training – capacity building
• Initiate publications (books, journal)

At the global level CSIRO Land and Water is responsible for:

• Representing the Australasia region in the Global HELP Committee
• Reporting regional activities, support, needs of HELP basin in the region to the Global HELP Committee.
• Acting as a clearing house for the HELP Secretariat in the region (funding, training, workshop, other opportunities)
• Participate, upon request by the IMC/Secretariat in the review process for potential HELP basins in other regions.

Already, the modelling tools and participatory methods used by CSIRO and its partners in the Murrumbidgee region are being adopted by communities in the Liuyuankou Irrigation Area along the Yellow River in China, and in Rechna Doab in the Indus basin. These projects are supported by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR).

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Last updated 4 November 2003