Australian wetlands: the monitoring challenge

Management of Australian wetlands is confounded by an absence of adequate environmental monitoring data. To a large extent we are still not sure of the exact location and extent of many wetlands. Inventory and monitoring information are intricately linked and at the heart of successful wetland management. Monitoring addresses the extent of change in the environment, yet, for wetlands, it is rarely based on valid scientific principles. Monitoring is also a research tool, but has not, until relatively recently, been accepted as integral to the research effort in environmental management, in part because the questions that may be answered have not been well defined or articulated. The absence of rigorous scientific input to monitoring design has contributed to the devaluing of past long-term monitoring effort. To turn this around and to ensure that wetland managers receive adequate and timely data we need to enhance the scientific rigor applied to monitoring. This requires long-term and strategic support. Management is a complex process and involves many sectors of society. Involving these sectors in monitoring has recently received some attention, but this is not universal and is not necessarily well supported. The challenge is to correct this situation and take advantage of community interest in wetland conservation that may provide mechanisms for more cost effective monitoring. A protocol for monitoring Australian wetlands is presented. This is a series of logical steps to assist in the development and implementation of monitoring programs that are effectively linked to management procedures (such as a formal management plan). The protocol includes a review process that could result in the termination of a program that has achieved its goals, or the abandonment or revamping of one that has failed.