Abstract of Seminar by Rebecca Bartley

Australia is on the move...down the creek!

Over $100 million dollars is spent on stream rehabilitation in Australia each year. Stream rehabilitation involvs accelerating the natural recovery processes in disturbed river systems. Yet, the definitions and techniques for measuring recovery, and the spatial and temporal scales over which recovery occurs within disturbed streams are not well understood.

This research has developed a framework for measuring and quantifying the recovery of three streams that have been disturbed by anthropogenically produced pulses of sediment known as sediment slugs. Sediment slugs now cover more than 30,000 km of Australia’s waterways, and pose a major threat to the geomorphological and ecological health of river systems, as well as potentially destabilising human infrastructure.

The results of this research will help prioritise funding for stream rehabilitation works, assist in understanding and integrating processes in geomorphology and aquatic ecology, and advance the understanding of restoration and rehabilitation theory in fluvial systems.