Gladstone Area Water Board Environmental Monitoring Program : aquatic ecosystem monitoring 2002, habitat, biota and vegetation assessment

To advance sustainable development and management of water within the Boyne River basin, Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines released a Resource Operations Plan (ROP) in July 2003. Partial requirements of the ROP include water quality and aquatic ecosystem monitoring which will be used to assist in determining the impacts of Awoonga Dam and of environmental releases on the habitat and biota downstream of the dam (NR&M, 2003). Aquatic ecosystem monitoring of the Boyne River was undertaken for Gladstone Area Water Board in 2001 and 2002 by the Centre for Environmental Management (CEM), Central Queensland University to meet the environmental and conservational commitments in the Boards strategic plan, to add to the existing Environmental Data Collection and Monitoring Programme (EDCM) and in anticipation of fulfilling requirements of the Resource Operations Plan.This summary report will report on most data collected in 2002 at four sites, within six reaches, downstream of the Awoonga Dam.