Workshop on saving water flows in the 21st century

Australia’s leading experts in water research and management will gather at the University of Canberra today for the second day of a two-day workshop to address the challenges of sustaining Australia’s vital freshwater ecosystems.

The workshop, ‘The Future of Environmental Flows’, is being hosted by the Water Resources and Freshwater Biodiversity Adaptation Research Network and funded by the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility.

Workshop convener Dr Samantha Capon, from Griffith University’s Australian Rivers Institute (ARI), said environmental flows are vitally important for a number of reasons, but particularly so in the face of advancing climate change.

“Environmental flows play a key role in minimising stresses on Australia’s freshwater ecosystems and in building a capacity to adapt to extreme events such as drought,” Dr Capon said.

“The aim of this workshop is to explore the potential impact of a changing world; not only from an ecological perspective but also within the cultural and institutional settings where planning and management of environmental flows takes place.

“From this we hope to identify what needs to be done to improve environmental water planning, policy, management and delivery in the coming decades.”