Australian Natural Resources Atlas

Natural Resource Topics

Rivers - Assessment of River Condition - Victoria

Location Map

Victoria River Assessment

Mallee Millicent Coast Glenelg River Wimmera-Avon Rivers Avoca River Loddon River Campaspe River Goulburn River Broken River Ovens River Kiewa River Upper Murray River East Gippsland Snowy River Tambo River Mitchell River Thomson River Latrobe River South Gippsland Bunyip River Yarra River Maribyrnong River Werribee River Moorabool River Barwon River Lake Corangamite Hopkins River Portland Coast Otway Coast

Assessment Results

Victoria covers an area of 227,600 km2, has 1,800 km of coastline, and is 2.6 percent of the total area of Australia. The climate is strongly affected by the Great Dividing Range, running east west across the State, and rising to nearly 2,000 metres in the eastern half. This range acts as a barrier to the moist south-east and south-west winds and, together with its proximity to the coast, causes the south of the State to receive more rain than the north. The lower rainfall to the north of the Great Divide is coupled with high temperatures during the summer.

The biological assessment of Victoria rivers showed that approximately 77% of the river length assessed was in reference condition; most of the rest significantly impaired with 20-50 percent of the animal types have been lost. The environmental assessment found that around 80% of the assessed river length was modified; 59% moderately and 20% substantially. This degradation was attributed to catchment disturbance, changes to the hydrological regime and to water quality.

Approximately 90% of the river length assessed had disturbed catchments, the majority of this attributable to land use activities. Over 40% of the river length able to be assessed for hydrological disturbance showed change, with 16% substantially or severely modified. Most of the four flow regime measures showed change.

Riverine physical habitat has been altered in approximately 50% of the river length assessed in Victoria as a result of changes to connectivity, riparian vegetation and bedload condition. Over 60% of river length assessed had substantially or severely modified riparian vegetation, indicating that there is very little riparian vegetation left along these sections of river.

Around 70% of the river length assessed in Victoria had altered water quality with elevated loads of suspended solids (65% river length assessed) and total phosphorus (65%).

Comparison of the Biota Index and the Environment Index

Ideally, scores for the two main indices would be similar for each basin. In general, the Biota Index does not demonstrate the same degree of degradation as the Environment Index. Reasons for this may include:

Environment Index scores compared to Biota Index scores for all basins.

Environment Index scores compared to Biota Index scores for all basins.

Further Information

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