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    <title>UTas ePrints - Imperilled rivers of Australia: Challenges for assessment and conservation</title>
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    <meta content="Barmuta, Leon A." name="eprints.creators_name" />
<meta content="Leon.Barmuta@utas.edu.au" name="eprints.creators_id" />
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<meta content="2007-09-20" name="eprints.datestamp" />
<meta content="2008-01-08 15:30:00" name="eprints.lastmod" />
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<meta content=" Imperilled rivers of Australia: Challenges for assessment and conservation" name="eprints.title" />
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<meta content="270708" name="eprints.subjects" />
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<meta content="River conservation
Conservation planning
Biodiversity conservation
Rapid biological assessment
River management
Australia
Critical review
Freshwater fish
Freshwater invertebrates
Freshwater plants
Human disturabance" name="eprints.keywords" />
<meta content="This is a critical review of the status of conservation management and biodiversity conservation in Australian river systems. This critique was based on an invited keynote address to the Fenner Conferences on the Environment 2001: Biodiversity Conservation in Freshwaters presented at the Australian Academy of Science, Canberra, 5th July 2001" name="eprints.note" />
<meta content="In Australia, riverine biodiversity (as judged by species diversity) is threatened by an array of anthropogenic effects common in industrialised countries (e.g. in-stream barriers, mining and sewage effluents, increased nutrient inputs, introduced species) as well as more diffuse, widespread phenomena characteristic of most of the arid and semi-arid areas of the world (e.g. salinisation and alteration of flows). Although much has been learned from specific case studies in the more populated areas, the nationally systematic efforts at quantifying these threats rely mostly on measures of river &quot;condition&quot; or &quot;health&quot; because measuring species diversity across areas as large as Australia is too expensive. However, these measures are incomplete representations of biodiversity, and some of the auditing processes compound other human values into their summaries of river condition or health. Furthermore, public perceptions of what rivers in Australia can deliver in terms of &quot;ecosystem services&quot; may not be feasible in many areas owing to the way that the Australian landscape has evolved. To avoid making the mistake of assuming that &quot;good river health&quot; automatically means &quot;all biodiversity is conserved,&quot; three advances are needed: appropriate conceptual frameworks of how a given river system functions, more research that clarifies the links between processes and biodiversity, and an understanding of the historical biogeography of the river biota so that we can provide a clear context for the first two items. Substantial progress has been made in developing and adapting conceptual models of river systems, research into processes is being initiated even in some remote, sparsely populated catchments, and much has been learned about the history and distribution of the flora and fauna. Key challenges remain in consolidating reliable empirical relationships between biodiversity and the surrogate variables used to measure it, estimating the rates of biodiversity change likely to accrue from climate change over the next millennium, and identifying biodiversity &quot;hot spots&quot; particularly for less than charismatic species." name="eprints.abstract" />
<meta content="2003-01-01" name="eprints.date" />
<meta content="published" name="eprints.date_type" />
<meta content="Aquatic Ecosystem Health &amp; Management" name="eprints.publication" />
<meta content="6" name="eprints.volume" />
<meta content="1" name="eprints.number" />
<meta content="55-68" name="eprints.pagerange" />
<meta content="10.1080/14634980301476" name="eprints.id_number" />
<meta content="UNSPECIFIED" name="eprints.thesis_type" />
<meta content="TRUE" name="eprints.refereed" />
<meta content="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14634980301476" name="eprints.official_url" />
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    <h1 class="ep_tm_pagetitle">Imperilled rivers of Australia: Challenges for assessment and conservation</h1>
    <p style="margin-bottom: 1em" class="not_ep_block"><span class="person_name">Barmuta, Leon A.</span> (2003) <xhtml:em>Imperilled rivers of Australia: Challenges for assessment and conservation.</xhtml:em> Aquatic Ecosystem Health &amp; Management, 6 (1). pp. 55-68.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 1em" class="not_ep_block"></p><table style="margin-bottom: 1em" class="not_ep_block"><tr><td valign="top" style="text-align:center"><a href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/1925/1/Barmuta2003.pdf"><img alt="[img]" src="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/style/images/fileicons/application_pdf.png" class="ep_doc_icon" border="0" /></a></td><td valign="top"><a href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/1925/1/Barmuta2003.pdf"><span class="ep_document_citation">PDF</span></a> - Full text restricted - Requires a PDF viewer<br />145Kb</td></tr></table><p style="margin-bottom: 1em" class="not_ep_block">Official URL: <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14634980301476">http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14634980301476</a></p><div class="not_ep_block"><h2>Abstract</h2><p style="padding-bottom: 16px; text-align: left; margin: 1em auto 0em auto">In Australia, riverine biodiversity (as judged by species diversity) is threatened by an array of anthropogenic effects common in industrialised countries (e.g. in-stream barriers, mining and sewage effluents, increased nutrient inputs, introduced species) as well as more diffuse, widespread phenomena characteristic of most of the arid and semi-arid areas of the world (e.g. salinisation and alteration of flows). Although much has been learned from specific case studies in the more populated areas, the nationally systematic efforts at quantifying these threats rely mostly on measures of river "condition" or "health" because measuring species diversity across areas as large as Australia is too expensive. However, these measures are incomplete representations of biodiversity, and some of the auditing processes compound other human values into their summaries of river condition or health. Furthermore, public perceptions of what rivers in Australia can deliver in terms of "ecosystem services" may not be feasible in many areas owing to the way that the Australian landscape has evolved. To avoid making the mistake of assuming that "good river health" automatically means "all biodiversity is conserved," three advances are needed: appropriate conceptual frameworks of how a given river system functions, more research that clarifies the links between processes and biodiversity, and an understanding of the historical biogeography of the river biota so that we can provide a clear context for the first two items. Substantial progress has been made in developing and adapting conceptual models of river systems, research into processes is being initiated even in some remote, sparsely populated catchments, and much has been learned about the history and distribution of the flora and fauna. Key challenges remain in consolidating reliable empirical relationships between biodiversity and the surrogate variables used to measure it, estimating the rates of biodiversity change likely to accrue from climate change over the next millennium, and identifying biodiversity "hot spots" particularly for less than charismatic species.</p></div><table style="margin-bottom: 1em" cellpadding="3" class="not_ep_block" border="0"><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">Item Type:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row">Article</td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">Additional Information:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row">This is a critical review of the status of conservation management and biodiversity conservation in Australian river systems. This critique was based on an invited keynote address to the Fenner Conferences on the Environment 2001: Biodiversity Conservation in Freshwaters presented at the Australian Academy of Science, Canberra, 5th July 2001</td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">Keywords:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row">River conservation
Conservation planning
Biodiversity conservation
Rapid biological assessment
River management
Australia
Critical review
Freshwater fish
Freshwater invertebrates
Freshwater plants
Human disturabance</td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">Subjects:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row"><a href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/view/subjects/270708.html">270000 Biological Sciences &gt; 270700 Ecology and Evolution &gt; 270708 Conservation and Biodiversity</a><br /><a href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/view/subjects/270701.html">270000 Biological Sciences &gt; 270700 Ecology and Evolution &gt; 270701 Freshwater Ecology</a></td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">ID Code:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row">1925</td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">Deposited By:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row"><span class="ep_name_citation"><span class="person_name">Dr Leon A. Barmuta</span></span></td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">Deposited On:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row">20 Sep 2007</td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">Last Modified:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row">09 Jan 2008 02:30</td></tr><tr><th valign="top" class="ep_row">ePrint Statistics:</th><td valign="top" class="ep_row"><a target="ePrintStats" href="/es/index.php?action=show_detail_eprint;id=1925;">View statistics for this ePrint</a></td></tr></table><p align="right">Repository Staff Only: <a href="http://eprints.utas.edu.au/cgi/users/home?screen=EPrint::View&amp;eprintid=1925">item control page</a></p>
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