School Community Environment Program - Community Landcare

SCHOOL COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENT PROGRAM Community Landcare - Waterwatch catchment monitoring

Index

Background Understanding your catchment Getting to know your local creek Monitoring water quality Acting on problems Resources Contact Navigation Bar

Background

Wherever you are, you are part of a catchment and since all life depends on water, we need to protect our catchments.

This page is of greatest relevance to groups which have access to a local creek which they can monitor and get to know as a means of better understanding the importance of healthy catchments and water quality, and the need for action to protect them. While we use the term 'creek' here, it could refer to any creek, waterway, drain, pond, dam or lake.

While Waterwatch (like Streamwatch) is a name given to a formal program, the approach used here is suitable for any group with access to a waterway, although those programs can greatly improve access to equipment and other resources (and to other groups) to allow more sophisticated and informed monitoring.

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Understanding your catchment

Your catchment is an important context to consider in getting to know your local creek - the water in your creek comes from other creeks and drains higher up in the catchment and from the land surrounding them, so the quality of water will be affected by how the catchment is managed. Equally, it is useful to know where your creek drains to, so you know what will be affected by poor water quality.

For example, Aranda lies at the head of a tributary of Ginninderra Creek. This creek flows to Lake Ginninderra and then to the Murrumbidgee River, which in turn is part of the great Murray-Darling Basin, the Murray River eventually reaching the sea in South Australia.

Find a map which shows waterways in your area and work back upstream to find out where your catchment starts and all the waterways which feed your creek
Mark in the line (usually a ridge) which divides your catchment from other catchments adjoining and see the shape of what lies above your creek
Then work downstream to see where your creek drains to
By now you will realise there is a heirarchy of catchments and sub-catchments large and small - you will need to decide on the kind of area you will be able to work in eg how much of your creek can you study and look after? could other groups take on other parts of the creek upstream or downstream?
Draw a map of your creek and its catchment
Find out (and map) what land uses there are in your catchment - keep at a fairly high level eg houses, shops, offices, light industry, heavy industry, parks and ovals, natural bush, market gardens, orchards, farms - and think about how each type of land use might affect water quality

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Getting to know your local creek

Safety comes first - never place people at risk in these activities. Consider the changing conditions of the creek and its access, the degree of skills (eg swimming) possessed by those monitoring and the importance of not working alone or without adequate supervision.

It is suggested that you make up a data sheet for your creek which will form the basis of all your observations and allow you to compare conditions over time. You will need to design a format suitable for your creek and for the people who will be doing the monitoring.

You may like to establish a number of monitoring points along the creek and give these numbners or names for future reference.

Some of the factors to consider on your data sheet include:

date, time, location eg map reference and/or sampling point number/name
weather, temperature, days since rain (and how much rainfall)
depth of water at a standard point
rate of flow
creek bed eg rocky, sandy, muddy, slimy, concrete
banks and surrounds eg vegetated, bare, eroding, kinds of plants - natives and weeds
water plants eg floating, emergent
pollution in and around creek eg rubbish, oil, chemical smells, froth, clarity

You may like to draw a profile of the creek at each sampling point, showing the shape of the creek bed and how the creek bed relates to banks, vegetation, structures etc. This can be measured and mapped for comparison over time eg to see how rapidly a bank is eroding, or vegetation is disappearing from the banks, and so on.
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Monitoring water quality

From this point on you might like to do some more sophisticated monitoring of what is happening in the water, by sampling macroinvertebrates (water bugs) and/or doing some simple chemical analysis.

Safety comes first - until you have done some analysis you will not know the chemical properties of your creek and caution is always required in handling water samples.

Water bugs are good indicators of water quality, as some are very sensitive to pollution. There are a number of guides to identifying water bugs and knowing which ones are more sensitive and which are less sensitive. By sampling water and examining the water bugs present you will get a good idea of the water quality - a wide variety of bugs including very sensitive ones suggests that your water quality is high.

A number of physical and chemical properties are also important indicators of water quality, including:

turbidity - from suspended solids eg silt and clay, wastes; high turbidity means poor clarity which reduces light, and affects temperature and the functioning of plants and animals
acidity - wastes can lead to increases or decreases in acidity which are harmful to creek life
phosphates and nitrates - from fertilisers, detergents and sewage; high levels mean an unhealthy creek as they stimulate algae and other weeds which deny oxygen and light to other creek life
dissolved oxygen - organic wastes promote bacteria which use up the oxygen needed by other creek life; low levels mean an unhealthy stream
temperature - affects dissolved oxygen and the functioning of plants and animals
faecal coliform bacteria - from sewage; high levels indicate sewage pollution which makes the presence of other harmful bacteria likely

You can test for these properties - temperature, acidity and turbidity can be measured with fairly simple equipment but phosphates, nitrates and faecal coliform require specialised equipment and tests which you may need to obtain through a program like Waterwatch or Streamwatch.
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Acting on problems

By sampling a number of points along your creek (either your group or a number of groups) you may be able to find a point at which water quality declines as you go downstream, indicating a source of pollution which can be further investigated.

Communicating what you discover in your monitoring is an important part of increasing awareness and understanding of the creek and its catchment. If you find your creek is healthy, let people know so that they can continue to protect that quality and may more readily accept your advice if that quality declines. If you find water quality and pollution problems, act on them by passing your information on to local government or State government agencies, and even on to the media if you are being ignored. You can see why systematic and careful monitoring is important, and why getting to know how to do more sophisticated analyses can greatly help you look after your creek.

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Resources

For links to agencies and Waterwatch/Streamwatch programs please see the Landcare Links page.

A number of useful resources are listed in our Resource Collection pages.

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please write to Learnscapes at   mlb@rosella.apana.org.au
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Last updated 7 February 1999