TRaCK Projects

1: Scenario Evaluation

1.1: Scenarios for tropical rivers and coasts: integrating the TRaCK research program
Francis Pantus

This project integrates research from other themes and provides tools for evidence-based decision-making. In this project stakeholders are being engaged at various levels, from the local to the national, to develop likely scenarios for the future of tropical rivers and coasts.

1.2: New ways of better involving Indigenous people in planning for our water and land resources
Owen Stanley

The perspectives of Indigenous communities are often not heard in mainstream water and land planning processes and debates.  Through targeted training (learning by doing) this research aims to give local Indigenous communities the skills required to effectively participate and be heard; and...

1.3: Collaborative water planning in northern Australia
Poh-Ling Tan

This project aims to improve the certainty, legitimacy and efficiency of water planning processes across northern Australia. To do this, the team are developing a tool-kit of good practices to engage industry, Indigenous and rural communities in water planning. They are also working with water...

1.4: Knowledge integration and science delivery
Francis Pantus

Project 1.4 aims to improve our understanding of the functioning and management of tropical rivers and coasts by integrating the knowledge that is being developed across the TRaCK program. To that end, we will develop concepts, methods and tools that deliver such knowledge to a range of...

2: Assets and Values

2.1: The value of Australia’s tropical rivers
Anna Straton

The aims of this research are to work with communities, businesses and the government to identify the uses, values and benefits of three of Australia's tropical rivers and to quantify some of them in dollar terms so that their extent and importance can be accounted for in decision making. ...

2.2: Indigenous values and river flows
Sue Jackson

In northern Australia the need for water planning to identify and address Indigenous interests and values is great. However Indigenous values associated with rivers are poorly understood by decision-makers. This project will work closely with Aboriginal communities to look at the importance of...

3: River and Coastal Settings

3.1: Socio-economic activity and water use in the Tropical Rivers region
Natalie Stoeckl

An understanding of the socio-economic systems and their relationships with the environment is a key component in assessing the implications of future developments in northern Australia.  This project will study a range of economic, cultural, institutional and human-capital aspects of...

3.2: Biophysical classification: Classifying Riverscapes across northern Australia
Andrew Brooks

A universally accepted system of classifying riverscapes (i.e. a geomorphic river classification scheme) does not exist for the tropical north of Australia.  This project will develop such a classification and so provide an understanding of the diversity of riverscapes in northern Australia...

3.3: Ecohydrological regionalisation of Australia: a tool for management and science
Brad Pusey

River classifications identify the key features that make rivers different or similar and so provide a tool by which the insights and knowledge gained in one river or region may be meaningfully applied or transferred to another.  This project proposes to develop a regional classification of...

4: Material Budgets

4.1: Catchment water budgets and water resource assessment
Richard Cresswell

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...

4.2: Regional scale sediment and nutrient budgets
Gary Caitcheon

To manage sediment and nutrient inputs to rivers we need to identify which of the erosion processes are most important in different parts of the catchment.  This project aims to do this and so increase our understanding of how current land-uses impact the river systems in two north...

4.3: Towards understanding the impacts of land management on productivity in the Daly and Flinders Rivers
Barbara Robson

A common result of human activity in catchments is an increase in the amount of sediment and nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) found in rivers.  This project will answer questions about how changes to the sediments and nutrients found in rivers affect the processes and plant growth in...

4.4: Bedload transport in large tropical rivers and its effect on dry-season pool habitat dynamics
Andrew Brooks

The pools that remain in northern Australian rivers during the long dry season provide an important refuge for stream fauna and flora and are often culturally significant. There is a common perception, however, that many of these riverine waterholes are being filled by sands. Changes in land-...

4.5: Developing a Water Quality Monitoring Framework for the Katherine and Daly River Catchment
Simon Townsend

A Water Quality Monitoring Framework is being developed for the Katherine and Daly River Catchments in the Northern Territory.  The aim of the Framework is to provide a comprehensive and locally relevant guide to assist future water quality monitoring planning and implementation in an...

4.6: Trial of the Framework for the Assessment of River and Wetland Health (FARWH) in the wet/dry tropics
Simon Townsend

The National Water Commission has developed a national framework that can form the basis of comparable national river and wetland health assessments, and has the capacity to...

5: Foodwebs and biodiversity

5.1: Bottom up and top down control of tropical river food webs
Michael Douglas

The food webs of Australia's tropical rivers are poorly understood yet provide the foundation for healthy rivers.  This project will explore how these food webs are structured to support complex river ecosystems.  Using a variety of experiments scientists will identify the sources of...

5.2: Refugial Pools. Importance of waterholes as aquatic refugia and the biophysical processes that sustain them
Stuart Bunn

River waterholes are a critical refuge for aquatic plants and animals when rivers stop flowing and are also highly valued by local communities.  Unfortunately waterholes are also vulnerable to increasing water demands, uncontrolled stock access, fishing pressure and the effects of climate...

5.3: River-floodplain food web subsidies
Stuart Bunn

As the wet season flows overtop river banks, fish and other animals make the most of expanded feeding grounds, moving out onto the floodplains.  As the floodwaters recede, these animals take the nutrients and energy obtained from the floodplain, back to the river channel.  This project...

5.4: Assessing the effect of urbanisation and catchment development on ecosystem health in estuaries
Michele Burford

This project will assess the effects of different land-based development pressures on the assets and values of northern estuarine ecosystems.  Research will first focus on the effects of urban development in Darwin Harbour.  The second part of the project will focus on the effects of...

5.5: Flow-ecology relationships for biodiversity and ecosystem processes
Peter Davies

Water managed and 'allocated' to the environment is commonly known as 'environmental flows'.  The critical step in determining appropriate environmental flows is predicting how particular changes in river flows might affect natural ecological assets.  This project will investigate the...

5.6: Flow impacts on estuarine finfish of the Gulf of Carpentaria
Ian Halliday

Our current knowledge suggests that flows of freshwater into estuaries play a significant role in determining the numbers of fish that live there.  This project aims to increase our detailed understanding of how freshwater flows affect some key estuarine species.  This is crucial if we...

5.7: Environmental flow tools for northern rivers (synthesis project)
Peter Davies

There is growing interest in developing and allocating the water resources of tropical Australia.  The big question is how much water  can we extract for water development and how much do we need to retain to sustainably manage the ecological health of aquatic systems?  This...

5.8: Biodiversity and HCVAE. Bioregionalisation conservation priorities and predictive models of aquatic biodiversity
Jane Hughes

Biodiversity is a feature of aquatic ecosystems that is often valued by different members of the community.  To effectively manage aquatic biodiversity, we need to know where the areas of high biodiversity are.  It is also useful to know what causes some areas to have high biodiversity...

6: Sustainable enterprises

6.1: Establishing water markets in northern Australia
Quentin Grafton

Northern Australian Indigenous people are among the most disadvantaged in the nation.  Improved socio-economic status will depend on access to, and sustainable use of, natural resources, including water.

This research will examine the potential effectiveness and durability of water...

6.2: Indigenous rights to water in northern Australia
Michael O'Donnell

This project builds on recent work done on international developments in Indigenous water rights. The project is examining the detail of present law and associated process in northern Australia and the way it deals with native title and other Indigenous interests in water. In particular, the...

6.3: Developing an effective conservation and sustainable use economy in Arnhem Land: options for payment for environmental services
John Altman

Much of the Indigenous estate in north Australia is either thinly populated or unpopulated. There is emerging evidence that, in situations where Indigenous people live on their country, ecological and wider benefits are generated via favourable fire regimes, control over weed infestations, and...

7: Knowledge and Adoption

7.1: Knowledge and adoption
Ruth O'Connor

The overarching objective of the knowledge and adoption project is to increase the uptake and impact of TRaCK research outcomes.

TRaCK is conducting research to provide the science and knowledge that government, communities and industries need for the sustainable use and management of...

our research themes

Theme 1: Scenario EvaluationTheme 2: Assets and ValuesTheme 3: River and Coastal SettingsTheme 4: Material BudgetsTheme 5: Foodwebs and BiodiversityTheme 6: Sustainable enterprisesTheme 7: Knowedge and Adoption

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