4.1: Catchment water budgets and water resource assessment

Leader:

Richard Cresswell

Abstract

This project aims to start measuring and calculating the different elements of water budgets in three of the TRaCK focus catchments. To build a water budget we need to know how much water there is in the catchment, where it goes and when. Water budgets are a useful tool for catchment managers making decisions about water extraction. They also help us understand how aquatic systems are linked or isolated within a catchment and how other materials such as sediment and nutrients move through catchments.

Outcomes

Government policy and water planning staff will benefit from increased understanding of the links between surface water and groundwater systems in tropical environments. For example, they will be better able to predict the effects of groundwater pumping on groundwater levels and river flows. Government staff and regional natural resource management bodies will also be better able to predict of the effects of landuse change (in terms of vegetation cover) on groundwater levels and river flows. This information is critical for management of riparian ecosystems, and for protecting aquatic species which live in the rivers.

Other researchers will benefit through better knowledge of surface water - groundwater interaction and tropical hydrology. Practicing hydrologists will also be able to use methods developed in this project.

Where is the research happening?

This project will involve activities in the Daly, Fitzroy and Mitchell catchments, but not all activities will take place in all catchments. Evapotranspiration measurements and water balance calculations will take place in the Daly catchment. Groundwater- surface water characterisation and modelling will take place in both the Daly and Fitzroy catchments. Mapping of areas of inundation and persistence of water holes will take place in the Daly and Mitchell catchments.

Who's involved

The project is being run by Dr Peter Cook from CSIRO Land and Water in Adelaide. In addition to CSIRO the project team includes researchers from Charles Darwin University and the Environmental Research Institute of the Supervising Scientist (eriss) - both based in Darwin.

The project team will also be working closely with other projects in the material budgets theme who will need water budgets to describe sediment and nutrient movements. Likewise mapping of inundation will be important to the foodwebs and biodiversity projects looking at waterhole dynamics.