Bellingen Shire Council adopted the Bellinger Kalang EcoHealth Report card at its meeting held on the 22nd of June. The Card was officially Launched by Council and the Northern Rivers Catchment Management Authority on the 13th of July.
The report card is an outcome of Management Objective 4 of Council’s Bellinger and Kalang Estuary Management Plan – specifically 4.1 which states “ Establish a water quality monitoring program with the aim of gathering and distributing data that provides an improved understanding of river health and trends in health over time”.
Ecohealth is an aquatic ecosystem monitoring program that measures how healthy our rivers and estuaries are for the plants and animals that live in them. It uses key indicators of ecosystem health (water quality, riparian (river bank), fish and macroinvertebrates to determine where rivers may be under stress and where environmental protection or restoration activities might be needed.
Ecohealth scores each of the indicators and awards a grade to each site. These grades enable the health of catchment to be compared over time and to other catchments in the region.
Ecohealth does not attempt to report on human environmental health issues in the rivers such as drinking water quality, if it’s safe for swimming, heavy metal contamination, disease, bacteria,viruses or our ability to harvest shellfish or fish.
Follow this link to view the technical documentation, frequently asked Questions and Answers and the methodology for determing the scores.
The Report Card is available for download
Belliger Kalang Report Card
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