Tools for river management decision making
Eco Evidence
Eco Evidence is a software tool designed by eWater CRC to support evidence-based decision-making in environmental management. The software lets users search and access a reusable knowledge bank of pieces of evidence (extracted from scientific papers) to answer cause-effect questions, make assessments, plan for restorations, and carry out critical reviews on a specific topic of interest. The power of the tool lies in its ability to help users apply criteria to establish clear cause-and-affect linkages in environmental investigations. It lets users analyse existing evidence in a well-documented, transparent, repeatable and rigorous manner. Eco Evidence can also be used to store evidence from a particular analysis, and lets users publish material to the on-line database for re-use and sharing with other users. Follow this link to use Eco Evidence.
National Water Resource Planning Tool
This online application, based on National Water Commission’s inaugural National Water Planning Report Card 2011, provides a summary of the status of water plans across Australia, including the quality of existing water plans, their implementation, and areas for future improvement. Users can compare key elements of water planning at national, state and local levels – across 157 water plan areas. The National Water Commission has developed this web resource as a contribution to more effective and transparent water planning reporting. To use the tool follow this link National Water Resource Planning Tool.
eWater Toolkit
The Toolkit is a source of software tools and information related to the modelling and management of water resources developed by the eWater Cooperative Research Centre and building on earlier work by the former Cooperative Research Centre for Catchment Hydrology. The eWater tool kit provides access to a large number of different software tools focussing on different aspects of water quality, quantity and flow. There is also a searchable knowledge base and river management themes you can search by, for example, urban water, ecology and restoration or catchment modelling. Follow this link the eWater toolkit.
Using remote sensing technology for water planning
Developing water sharing plans that are comprehensive, rigorous and equitable requires sound scientific and technical knowledge. With competition for water increasing, it is important to understand patterns of water use and to ask where the opportunities are for water savings, and how can water be ‘best’ distributed to meet a range of needs? Answering these questions requires information about how much water is being used by different land use types at the catchment scale. Essentially, water planners need to know what water is currently used and what on-ground changes to cropping / pasture / forestry patterns may mean to their water balance. Evapotranspiration (ET) is a fundamental component of the catchment water balance, with approximately 90% of total precipitation falling in Australia returning to the atmosphere through ET. Satellite remote sensing of ET offers an innovative way of acquiring ET data at regional or catchment scale.
The ARRC has been working with the National Water Commission to produce two fact sheets on how remote sensing technology can be used to improve irrigation water use efficiency as well as assist water planners working at the catchment and regional scale, these are now available:
Using remote sensing data for water planning and management
Using remote sensing for improved irrigation water use and productivity
1 November 2010 5:18 pm
