Catchment Rehydration Selection Tool
The Mulloon Institute and HydroTerra are working in partnership with NSW Department of Primary Industries Agriculture to develop a Catchment Rehydration Selection Tool through funding from the NSW DPI’s Climate Smart Pilots Project, Demonstrating Adaptation Program.
The selection tool will help evaluate catchment scale regions across NSW for the suitability of implementing landscape rehydration practices which have been successfully demonstrated by TMI through its Mulloon Rehydration Initiative in the Mulloon Creek catchment near Bungendore, NSW, along with other catchment rehydration projects around Australia.
The Catchment Rehydration Selection Tool provides a spatial output, akin to a heat map, providing high level guidance of areas that warrant further investigation into their suitability for implementing rehydration practices. The selection tool is intended for use by government, industry and private organisations who want to prioritise the allocation of resources for supporting practice-change towards adoption of landscape rehydration, at catchment scale.
A wide range of stakeholders stand to benefit from application of the heat map – including the environment, farming communities, investors, regulators and other government agencies.
The project is structured in 4 stageS:
Stage 1 – has determined indicators which define the suitability of catchment areas to rehydration practices, then identified the availability of related spatial datasets for use in the selection tool model.
Stage 2 – has entailed design of a draft specification of the selection tool model – describing how the selected spatial datasets can be integrated to achieve the desired output, aiming to develop a ranking of sub-catchments on the basis of established indicators.
The first two stages have been completed after extensive consultation with professional experts from industry, research and private organisations, ensuring the final model specification is underpinned by robust and reliable knowledge.
Consultations with subject experts will continue in the next stage of model development, to be conducted over coming months.
Based on the success of rehydration practices at Mulloon Creek catchment, significant and widespread benefits are expected from wide adoption of the practices, including farm profitability, improvement in soil health, ecological services and drought resilience.
The Mulloon Rehydration Initiative is jointly funded through the Mulloon Institute and the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program, with support from the NSW Government’s Environmental Trust.