Rivers Alive!

Healthy rivers are our lifeblood. Queensland's rivers are among the most beautiful and diverse on earth. Our rivers, and the wetlands they feed, are home to many rare plants, birds, fish, and mammals. Our healthy rivers provide clean drinking water for everyone and are vital for the Queensland way of life.

Despite their outstanding natural and cultural values, Queensland's rivers are under increasing threat. Many of our rivers continue to be polluted with pesticides and toxic chemicals and have much more water pumped out than is considered healthy.

The greatest threat to our rivers comes from escalating water use. Large scale irrigated agriculture already uses 78% of all the water consumed in Queensland (DEH 2000), and it’s getting thirstier. Irrigation is expanding at an unsustainable rate throughout Queensland creating pressure for more large scale dams and irrigation schemes.

Dams and irrigation schemes damage rivers by:

• permanently changing the natural healthy flows;
• causing widespread pollution and water quality problems;
• destroying the breeding cycles of native fish;
• increasing the potential for poisonous blue-green algae attacks;

The most serious emerging threat to Queensland’s rivers however, is from reduced rainfall due to climate change. The alteration and reduction of natural flow regimes - critical to maintaining ecological functions and resilience - has significantly increased the risk to rivers, groundwater and wetlands across the state.

The Rivers Project

Queensland Conservation has coordinated the Rivers Project since 1989. The project aims to protect Queensland’s rivers, groundwater and wetlands by:

• Promoting ecologically sustainable water management;
• Publicly opposing new water infrastructure such as dams, weirs and pipelines;
• Protecting Queensland’s wild rivers under legislation;
• Contributing environmental sector perspective and submissions to statewide and national water reform and planning processes.

Statewide Water Reform

In 2004, the Queensland Government signed up to the National Water Initiative (NWI), which commits Queensland to reforming water resource management and planning across the state.  

NWI reform seeks to establish a framework for sharing water equitably between human and environmental needs, within ecologically sustainable limits.

The Rivers Project is actively involved in state-wide and national water reform and planning processes by:  

• Providing representation on stakeholder and community consultation panels;
• Preparing submissions and reports;
• Raising public awareness of statewide water issues;
• Providing the conservation sector’s views to government on statewide water reform and planning;
• Liaising with other interested stakeholders 

As part of NWI reform, Queensland has been developing Water Resource Plans for most catchments across the state. These plans set levels of water extraction within ecologically sustainable limits in order to protect the environment. They aim to achieve this by establishing the flow rates needed to maintain ecological functions and then setting water allocation security objectives aimed at providing more certainty for water users.

For Water Resource Plans to be effective over their 10 year lifespan the many complex issues associated with achieving sustainable water management must be resolved using the best available science and consultation processes.

Many of Queensland’s Water Resources Plans are approaching their statutory 10 yearly review. This will involve a detailed appraisal of the existing plan and how successfully it has met its key objectives. The ten year review also provides an opportunity for emergent issues, such as Global Warming and water quality, to be considered when the new plan is being prepared.

QCC views and submission on these water resource plans are available for download from the Rivers Project Resources Page.

Visit the Department of Natural Resources and Water website to find out more about Queensland’s Water Resource Plans

QCC produces a quarterly newsletter - Rivers Alive! Click Here to access back issues. You can subscribe to the newsletter using our contact form. Just enter your name and email address and write 'Rivers Alive!' in the 'enqiry' space.