Catchment and Aquatic Systems

Research Program: Andy Steven
Personal Assistant: Cheryl Orr

Group Leaders:
Rod Oliver - Environmental Flows and Ecology
Evelyn Krull - Carbon and Nutrient Cycling
Brad Sherman - Catchment and Aquatic Modeling

Managing our Rivers and Coasts

Rivers, estuaries and coastal environments are under significant pressure from development and climate change.

CSIRO delivers management options to sustain and improve the health of aquatic ecosystems. Key to this is an understanding of how these systems respond to changes in land use and climate.

Current research projects are:

• helping us to predict how changes in land and water management, and in the climate, will effect the sources, transport and transformations of sediment and nutrients in river, estuarine and coastal environments.
• increasing our understanding of the ecological responses of aquatic systems to changes in water quality, water quantity, and habitat
• developing tools and methods for managing water quality in rivers, reservoirs, estuaries and the near shore coastal environment.

Delivering future options

• CSIRO researchers are developing regional scale sediment and nutrient budgets which identify targets for rectification and repair.
• By quantifying the links between flow, physical habitat, nutrients and aquatic health, we provide a basis for assessing different management options and for evaluating the effectiveness of environmental flow and water allocation strategies.

Related Links

• How healthy are our rivers and estuaries?
• Water in Australia - Rivers and Estuaries FAQs
• eWater CRC
• Coastal CRC - archived publications
• CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems
• CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research
• CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences