WATER

Priorities:

Water quality decline
Unsustainable water use

Habitat loss or modification

Threatened species

Degradation of water quality, quantity and ecosystems threatens our surface waters and occurs through:

• High nutrient and sediment inputs from poor agricultural and forest management, roads and tracks
• Industrial and urban pollution (sewage, stormwater, litter, leachate from landfills)
• Acid mine drainage
• Aquatic and riparian habitat degradation and loss of biodiversity
• Inadequate environmental flow regimes caused by hydro schemes and farm dams.

Decreased water quality and quantity in aquifers is caused by:

• Land use changes that use or intercept rainfall and decrease aquifer recharge
• Excessive groundwater pumping
• Climate change
• Contaminants from point and diffuse sources
• Salinity
• Poor land use practices
• L and subsidence
• Acid mine drainage
• Leachate from landfills.