Submission on Inquiry into Floodplain Harvesting Select Committee on Floodplain Harvesting Legislative Council of NSW

It is important to underscore the importance of floodplains and their flows for the ecology of rivers. Much of the major sustainability problems affecting the rivers in New South Wales and particularly the Murray-Darling Basin are related to major ecological impacts on floodplains are caused by the regulation of rivers and developments on floodplains (Kingsford 2000, Steinfeld and Kingsford 2013, Kingsford et al. 2015, Thompson et al. 2017). These have affected the breeding of waterbirds (Leslie 2001, Arthur et al. 2012, Bino et al. 2014), vegetation health (Mac Nally et al. 2011, Bino et al. 2015, Catelotti et al. 2015), frogs (Ocock et al. 2014, Ocock et al. 2016), microbats (Blakey et al. 2017) and even woodland birds (Selwood et al. 2017). There have also been declines in inundation extent and frequency (Thomas et al. 2015). Most wetland areas (>80%) on rivers are floodplains in the Murray-Darling Basin (Kingsford et al. 2004).

To read the full submission see the linked PDF below.