Living, growing data on our rivers

In 1989 I left Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory, Australia, where I had been studying the ecology of freshwater fish for over ten years. During that time I surveyed fishes along the length of streams draining the Arnhem Land escarpment, then flowing past the tailings dam of the Ranger Uranium Mine. These across-the-landscape and across-time surveys yielded intriguing images of how aquatic animals of Kakadu respond to the stark Wet/Dry climate of the park.

 

On establishing myself on the NSW mid-north coast,  I was fortunate to be engaged in many projects focusing on the development of effective environmental flow regimes.  I soon learned that the  rivers along the NSW coast had very unpredictable river-flow patterns compared with Kakadu streams. As a result, it was clear that the scientific community  had a very poor understanding of how aquatic life responds to changing flows. To me it was obvious that this understanding could only be improved once changing river flows are related to patterns in fish numbers (or their important habitats) gathered over long periods of time (i.e. at least ten years) and across the landscape. Two long-term projects, focusing on the Hastings and Manning Rivers on the NSW mid-north coast, provided an opportunity to start gathering such important data.

 

This website primarily aims to provide glimpses into the above datasets as they grow and develop - in this sense they can be viewed as 'living'.  The patterns being revealed are invisible to the casual river observer as protracted and formidable efforts are required for observation, recording, collation and analysis. Some phenomenon occurring in rivers can be initiated many years prior to the time of observations, and so without fastidious record keeping and cross relating, the chances are slim indeed that cause and effect can be  casually recognised. 

 

 

For convenience, this website additionally provides a platform for presenting results from two developing local investigations, One focuses on the seasonal arrival of tropical marine fish at Seal Rocks, NSW, and the other tunes into the dynamics of forest animals in the Seal Rocks' hinterland.