A decision support framework (DSF) to help prioritise water quality management actions across the region, set management targets and assess management effectiveness
Background
The objective of the project is to develop a decision support framework (DSF) that supports the prioritisation of actions and setting of management targets to protect and improve water quality across Greater Melbourne. This research is important because it consolidates extensive pollution monitoring and assessment data collected by A3P and Melbourne Water over several years, the development of a DSF will enable Melbourne Water to identify the most efficient and effective water quality improvement actions across the region and set water quality management priorities in the next Healthy Waterways Strategy (HWS). This will include identifying pollution hotspots, environmental risk assessment, identification of priority pollutants and major sources and intervention options. This DSF will also be informed by developing techniques to evaluate the extent to which pollution is driving declines in key environmental values in some sub-catchments and assess the effectiveness of interventions.
Approach
- Conduct interviews across Melbourne Water and key stakeholders to understand needs and specific end use requirements e.g. What questions does it need to support? What outputs will be most useful? What systems does it needs to integrate with? Existing datasets that would be informative?
- Undertake a review of current knowledge around DSFs used within Australia and worldwide for water quality
- management. It will focus on the types of DSFs being used, underpinning information, metrics, identification of critical stakeholders,
- measurement of intervention effectiveness and data gaps.
- A stakeholder workshop to agree on the structure and functionality of the DSF based on interviews and literature review.
- Develop and test the DSF with Melbourne Water, including helping to identify priority pollution issues to inform Performance Objectives and set water quality condition targets in the next HWS.
Progress to date
Began Oct 2023
As of Sep 2024, the interviews are complete, the review has been conducted and the stakeholder workshop has been held.
Expected Outcomes
- More efficient and effective investment in water quality improvement activities across the region
- Provides a sound justification for investment in water quality improvement activities undertaken by Melbourne Water or our stakeholders
- Supports new water quality targets and Performance Objectives in the next HWS
Expected Completion
2028
Contact
For more information, please contact the project leads:
- Dr. Claudette Kellar, claudette.kellar@rmit.edu.au,
- Dr. Sara Long, sara.long@rmit.edu.au,
At Melbourne Water:
