Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/225491

Title

Spatial and temporal trends in the water quality of the Namoi River catchment

Author(s)

Neave, M.;  McQuire, L.;  Rayburg, S.

Abstract

Over 75% of the Namoi River catchment in northern NSW, Australia, is utilised for some form of agricultural activity including pasture, dry land cropping and irrigated cropping. These extensive agricultural usages have placed pressure on surface water resources within the catchment, resulting in the direct modification of flows through dam construction and the degradation of water quality within the catchment. Concern for the latter has led to the implementation of an extensive ongoing monitoring program that involves the collection of data on basic water quality parameters and a series of agrochemicals from over sixty sites within the catchment. Having obtained the water quality data, the difficulty lies in interpreting this complex and multi-faceted data set. The current study uses an index model to examine spatial and temporal trends in water quality from 18 sites in the Namoi River catchment between 1991 and 2001. The advantage of applying an index model is that it can be used to consider parameters collectively, thus simplifying more complicated data sets such as the one investigated within this study. Modelling results suggest that surface water quality in the upper Namoi catchment is significantly better (although still poor) than that for the lower catchment. These results can be partially attributed to the uneven distribution of cotton growth within the catchment. Temporally, surface water quality throughout the Namoi River catchment shows minor improvement for basic parameters and some improvement for agrochemicals over the 10 years of data collection. The agrochemical result may be partially attributed to the implementation of a BMP by the cotton industry, although the short period of record makes it difficult to be conclusive about this.

Publication type

Conference paper

Source

Proceedings of 'Water down under 2008', incorporating the 31st Hydrology and Water Resources Symposium and the 4th International Conference on Water Resources and Environment Research, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, 14-17 April 2008 / Martin Lambert, T. M. Daniell and Michael Leonard (ed.), pp. 1364-1374

Publication year

2008

Keyword(s)

Australia;  Catchments;  Environment;  Namoi River;  New South Wales;  Water quality management;  Watersheds

Publisher

Engineers Australia

ISBN

9780858257351, 0858257351

Publisher URL

http://www.informit.com.au/products/productdetails.aspx?id=0858257351

Copyright

Copyright © 2008 Engineers Australia.

Peer reviewed