Monitoring group helps scientists

Nine properties in the BBB catchment make up the LDC Community Water Quality Monitoring Group.

This group has been established to better understand the water quality variations throughout the BBB catchment, with a focus on sediment and nutrient concentrations throughout a range of flow events.

TropWATER’s Stephen Lewis and Zoe Bainbridge taught landholders how to collect and store water samples. The results have been compiled into booklets which are available on the LDC website here.

Data collected aims to improve understanding of the loss of soil (and the nutrients attached to this soil) from the land into waterways during high rainfall events, and to quantify differences in the contribution of sediments and nutrients from each of the BBB sub-catchments.

The data is shared with the Queensland Government’s Paddock to Reef Integrated Monitoring, Modelling and Reporting Program (Paddock to Reef program) to monitor progress against the water quality targets and actions under the Reef 2050 Water Quality Improvement Plan. 

This data, along with the data collected from the LDC project’s large-scale remediated gullies program, helps to strengthen the modelling for the Paddock to Reef program. This ensures landholders’ decisions and actions about land management practices are based on best available knowledge.