Cultural and environmental benefit

 

Cultural benefit

  • The Ngunnawal people are the Traditional Custodians of the Canberra region. Neighbouring regions include the Ngarigo, Wolgalu, Gundungurra, Yuin and Wiradjuri people.
  • River corridors play an important role in travel routes, and provide varied flora and fauna which are readily available food sources. Access to rivers is important in ensuring knowledge of Country, dreaming and future land management is passed down to younger generations.
  • One of the actions in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Government's Water Strategy 2014-44 is to "Ensure that indigenous and other cultural values are recognised in managing water planning and use", addressing the strategic objective to 'engage the community on understanding and contributing to a more sustainable city.'
  • For further information refer to Aboriginal Cultural Heritage of the ACT- Ngunnawal Country (Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate (ACT) 2010) and ACT Water Strategy 2014-44: Striking the Balance (Environment, Planning and Sustainable Development Directorate (ACT) 2014).

 

Environmental benefit

Environmental water provisions

  • Environmental flow requirements are defined for aquatic ecosystem categories and specific river reaches in Chapter 5 of the 2013 Environmental Flow Guidelines.
  • Data for the Cotter River were available at the time of publication and are presented here as an example of the region's environmental flow provisions.

Figure XX Example environmental water provisions for the Cotter River below Corin Dam
Figure E1 Example environmental water provisions for the Cotter River below Corin Dam

 

  • The required environmental flows are maintained through a combination of strategic water releases or spills from storages and by restricting the volume of water that can be diverted from a catchment.
  • The baseflow requirement is specified on a monthly basis, with fortnightly variations in the rate of release preferred compared to constant discharge for the month.
  • Drawdown limits for impoundments, and protection of larger, less frequent 'channel maintenance' flows are also a part of the environmental water provisions, but are not shown on the figure above.

 

Environmental water outcomes

Figure XX Example outcome: flow in the Cotter River compared with the required flow regime during the 20XX–XX year
Figure E2 Example outcome: flow in the Cotter River compared with the required flow regime during the 2016–17 year

  • Flows in the Cotter River below Corin Dam exceeded the monthly baseflow requirements and bi-monthly riffle maintenance requirements, and were very close to meeting the annual pool maintenance requirements for the 2016–17 year.
  • For more detail on environmental flows in the region, including historical data, see the Icon Water environmental management site.