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Department of Climate Change, Energy, Enviroment and Water

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  5. Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder’s future Science Program

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  • Monitoring and evaluation
    • Monitoring Evaluation and Research Program
    • Future Flow-MER
    • Recent highlights Flow-MER Program
    • Aquatic ecosystems toolkit

Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder’s future Science Program

The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder’s (CEWH’s) future monitoring, evaluation and research activities within the Murray–Darling Basin.

The CEWH is undertaking activities to design and procure its future monitoring, evaluation and research activities (referred to as Flow-MER2.0) which refine and enhance the current Flow-MER program. This builds on the December 2020 independent scientific evaluation of the Long-Term Intervention Monitoring (LTIM) and the Environmental Water Knowledge and Research (EWKR) projects, consultation with Basin stakeholders, and over ten years of experience in managing environmental water within the Basin.

The current Flow-MER Program will conclude in June 2024 and the on ground activities of the new program commence in July 2024.

The CEWH is striving to embed First Nations knowledge and science into the future science program to ensure environmental watering is underpinned by the best available knowledge.

The open tender for the procurement of future monitoring, evaluation and research activities has now concluded and submissions are being evaluated. Contracting for the new program will likely take place from June-August 2023.

Independent Scientific Evaluation

The final evaluation report, technical appendices and the response from the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder (CEWH) to the Independent Scientific Evaluation are available at: Review of LTIM and EWKR. The evaluation provided 16 recommendations for improvements and further considerations which are summarised below:

  • clarifying purpose of the Basin scale evaluation and improving alignment to the Basin-wide Environmental Watering Strategy
  • improving design to incorporate flexibility, responsiveness and integration of activities
  • improving communication, engagement and collaboration with Basin stakeholders
  • improving First Nations engagement, participation and partnerships
  • improving data management to ensure data accessibility and sharing

Basin-scale Collaborative Design Process

The CEWH engaged the CSIRO through the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment’s Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to facilitate a collaborative design process for the future Program and Basin evaluation and research component.

The Basin-scale collaborative design process concluded in June 2022.

Outputs from the Basin-scale collaborative design process have been utilised by the CEWH to inform the design of the future program.

A further collaborative design process will be undertaken when Providers for Flow-MER2.0 have been contracted. The steps are indicatively outlined below:

  • Stage 1:
    • Part A: Collaborative development of Program level strategies and documents (September – December 2023),
    • Part B: Consultation and planning (January – March 2024)
    • Part C: Plan development and approval (April – June 2024)
  • Stage 2:
    • Commence implementation of Flow-MER2.0 (July 2024)

Outputs from the Basin-scale collaborative design process have been utilised by the CEWH to inform the design of the future program.

A further collaborative design process will be undertaken when Providers for Flow-MER2.0 have been contracted. The steps are indicatively outlined below:

Independent Advisory Group

To help provide advice and review on the future design of Flow-MER2.0 Program, the CEWH established an Independent Advisory Group. This group reviewed, advised and made recommendations to the CEWH, ensuring independent oversight of the collaborative design process and program design.

Principles

The design of Flow-MER2.0 is guided by the following principles:

  • Collaboration - creating consultative virtual environments to enable respectful discussions and advice from a range of stakeholders including:
    • CEWH
    • Government agencies
    • Science providers
    • Independent Advisory Group
    • Aboriginal scientists
  • Build on success - recognising the strengths and limitations of past programs as identified in the recent reviews of Flow-MER, LTIM and EWKR
  • Program Purpose - contributing to CEWH legislative reporting requirements and adaptive management of environmental water
  • Complementary – aligning with and complementing the Basin Environmental Watering Strategy, CEWH Selected Areas MER and other programs, including jurisdictional activities
  • Culturally inclusive – including Aboriginal people and Indigenous science
  • Data management and sharing - enhancing the value and utility of monitoring and research data, through improved data governance, management and sharing
  • Communication and engagement - improving the effectiveness and impact of communication and engagement activities both internal and external to the Program
  • Innovative and robust - encouraging innovative approaches that are robust and underpinned by scientifically defensible research, monitoring and evaluation
  • Impactful - promoting a reporting structure which is impactful, efficient and focussed on clear communication of fit-for-purpose outcomes and guidance to inform legislative reporting and improve water management.

Further Information

  • Monitoring, Evaluation and Research
  • First Nations participation in the CEWH Science Program

Email: CEWOMonitoring@dcceew.gov.au

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Last updated: 22 May 2023

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We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present.