The development of a standardised means of collecting, analysing and presenting riverine, coastal and estuarine assessments of ecological condition has been identified as a key need for coastal Local Councils who are required to monitor natural resource condition, and water quality and quantity in these systems. Thirty-one study sites were selected across the Nambucca River and Deep Creek catchments; 18 freshwater sites and 13 estuarine sites and these were sampled 6 times from July 2016 to June 2017 to contribute to the assessment of the ecological condition of the catchment.
The Nambucca Ecohealth program was divided into six major hydrological units across nine subcatchments: Nambucca River (North Arm), tributaries of the Nambucca North Arm, Taylors Arm, tributaries of Taylors Arm, and Warrell Creek in the Nambucca catchment; and Deep Creek, an ICOLL (Intermittently Closed and Open Lake or Lagoon) to the north of the Nambucca catchment. The project aimed to:
- Assess the health of coastal catchments using standardised indicators and reporting for estuaries, and freshwater river reaches using hydrology, water quality, riparian vegetation and habitat quality, geomorphic condition and macroinvertebrate assemblages as indicators of aquatic ecosystem health, and
- Contribute scientific information to the development of a report card system for communicating the health of the estuarine and freshwater systems in the Nambucca River and Deep Creek catchments.