Healthy Waters Management Plans (HWMPs) and Water Quality Improvement Plans (WQIPs)
The Environmental Protection (Water) Policy 2009 establishes Healthy Waters Management Plans (HWMPs) as a key planning mechanism to improve the quality of Queensland waters. Key matters to be addressed in a HWMP include identifying:
- waters to which the plan applies
- issues affecting water dependent ecosystems, drinking water and natural flows
- waterway uses and values (otherwise known as 'Environmental Values' and abbreviated as 'EVs')
- management goals and Water Quality Objectives (WQOs) to protect identified EVs
- ways to protect the environmental values for the water
- ways to monitor and assess the effectiveness of the protection.
Key aspects of the process to develop EVs include appropriate consultation with the community and consideration of social and economic impacts of protecting the EVs. A Guideline on HWMPs (PDF, 601K)* provides more information on the content and process.
Current healthy waters management plan activities
The Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM) is currently working with regional NRM bodies in the Wet Tropics and Queensland Murray Darling Basin to prepare HWMPs that meet legislative requirements under the Environmental Protection (Water) Policy 2009. Further information on these projects is available from the links below:
Additionally, DERM and the Fitzroy Basin Association have jointly developed draft EVs for waters in the Fitzroy Basin (for more information on this project refer to the Fitzroy Basin environmental values link on the left sidebar).
Water quality improvement plans
Under its Coastal Catchments Initiative (PDF)*, the Australian Government funded the Southeast Queensland (SEQ) Healthy Waterways Partnership, and several Great Barrier Reef (GBR) regional NRM bodies and local governments to develop Water Quality Improvement Plans (WQIPs) in SEQ and most of the GBR catchments/regions. This program has now ceased.
WQIPs are a 'forerunner' to HWMPs. DERM worked with all of the above bodies to ensure that the process they used to establish the EVs and WQOs is consistent with the Environmental Protection (Water) Policy 2009.
As part of the program, consultant Marsden Jacob Associates (MJA) was engaged to identify the economic and social implications of protecting the EVs throughout the region covered by separate WQIPs. The final report, The economic and social impacts of protecting environmental values in Great Barrier Reef catchment waterways and the reef lagoon (March 2010) (PDF, 2.1M)*, is available for downloading.
Individual WQIPs can be found below:
- SEQ WQIP
- Burnett-Baffle WQIP
- Mackay-Whitsunday WQIP
- Burdekin WQIP
- Ross-Black Basins (Townsville) WQIP
- Tully WQIP
- Barron/Trinity Inlet
- Douglas WQIP
* Requires Adobe Reader
Last updated 28 June 2011