Commonwealth Environmental Water Office Long-Term Intervention Monitoring Project Murrumbidgee river system selected area: Technical report, 2014-2019

The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder (CEWH) is responsible under the Water Act 2007 (Commonwealth) for managing Commonwealth environmental water holdings to protect and restore the environmental assets of the Murray-Darling Basin (MDB). The Murray-Darling Basin Plan (2012) (referred to hereafter as the Basin Plan) further requires that the holdings must be managed in a way that is consistent with the Basin Plan’s Environmental Watering Plan. The Water Act 2007 and the Basin Plan also impose obligations to report on the contribution of Commonwealth environmental water to the environmental objectives of the Basin Plan. Monitoring and evaluation are critical to effectively and efficiently use Commonwealth environmental water, supporting the CEWH’s reporting obligations in addition to demonstrating overall effectiveness at meeting conservation objectives.The Long-Term Intervention Monitoring Project (LTIM Project) is the primary framework by which the Commonwealth Environmental Water Office (CEWO) monitors and evaluates the ecological outcomes of Commonwealth environmental watering and its objectives. The LTIM Project is implemented at seven Selected Areas over a five-year period from 2014-15 to 2018-19 to inform environmental water management and demonstrate high-level outcomes (in order of priority):• Evaluate the contribution of Commonwealth environmental watering to the objectives of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s (MDBA) Environmental Watering Plan• Evaluate the ecological outcomes of Commonwealth environmental watering at each of the seven Selected Areas• Infer ecological outcomes of Commonwealth environmental watering in areas of the MDB not monitored • Support the adaptive management of Commonwealth environmental water• Monitor the ecological response to Commonwealth environmental watering at each of the seven Selected Areas.This evaluation report describes the ecological outcomes of environmental watering actions in the Murrumbidgee Selected Area undertaken in 2014-15 to 2018-19. This report draws on information presented in the Murrumbidgee Monitoring and Evaluation Plan (M&EP) (Wassens et al. 2014a).