A research proposal led by the University of Melbourne and supported by EPA Victoria through its Research and Development program to forecast future health of Victorian waterways has been funded by Australian Research Council (ARC).
EPA is the lead partner organisation, along with the Bureau of Meteorology, Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries, Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines.
The three year project involves compiling current and historic information forecast the impacts of pollution on Victorian waterways, and therefore their future health.
This important piece of work extends our knowledge and gives us the power to be able to inform future policy for the effective control of water pollution into the future.
Research will be based on water quality, climate, land use, river flow and vegetation rather than focussed on hot spots.. The work will underpin a new predictive capacity, including response to land use and management changes and climatic variations, as well as a water quality prediction capability.
It is intended that the models developed will jointly model a range of inter-related water quality parameters.