Previous programs

The Regional Estuaries Initiative (2016-20)

The Regional Estuaries Initiative was a four year $20 million funded State Government program to improve the health of six Western Australian estuaries which ran from 2016 to 2020.

The initiative is succeeded by Healthy Estuaries WA which is built on the same five strategies.

Outcomes of the Regional Estuaries Initiative:

Delivery of more than 70 projects
Collaboration with 25 organisations across industry, natural resource management, state government and local government.
Over 8400 paddocks soil tested for better fertiliser management
Regular monitoring of more than 150 estuary and catchment sites

...and many more!

Below is a summary of each strategy of the Regional Estuaries Initiative.

Regional capacity

Sustainable agriculture

Water in the landscape

Innovative remediation

Science for management

Regional Capacity

A coordinated effort is needed to improve water quality and protect the values that depend on healthy estuaries: thriving ecosystems, liveable communities, and economic development. The Regional Capacity and Project Delivery strategy supported regional groups and partnerships to implement on-ground actions for healthier estuaries. Local communities were informed, engaged and equipped for long-term regional catchment management.

Restoring and protecting the health of our estuaries is only possible if people with the right skills, knowledge and experience work together. The Regional Estuaries Initiative was designed to support training and employment opportunities for regional communities, targeting local practices to improve estuary condition.

Catchment groups can be stretched thin, and projects and partnerships to improve agricultural or urban water quality take means and capability. The Regional Estuaries Initiative provided resources for project officers and catchment coordinators to deliver on-ground actions.

Consistent effort is required to recruit landholders to try soil testing and fertiliser management or manage dairy effluent to reduce nutrients entering waterways. We partnered with regional landcare groups, catchment councils and peak agriculture industry bodies to promote best practice and improve water quality.

Growing urban areas in our regional centres also put our estuaries under pressure through changes to water flows and runoff of polluted stormwater. The Regional Estuaries Initiative worked with local governments to embrace water sensitive urban design by using better urban planning and design to mimic natural hydrological processes.

An accurate picture of water quality, land use and land use practices is needed across the six estuaries and catchments to guide long term investment and future planning. Water Quality Improvement Plans (WQIPs) document estuary condition, identify and quantify pressures and causes of degradation, and develop practical response actions. The Regional Estuaries Initiative brought WQIPs to a contemporary standard supported by updated catchment modelling and best management practices for urban and agricultural areas.

Action plans and tailored on-ground works to improve water quality by estuary and catchment were developed. Find the most current information on each estuary at:

Strong project management and extensive partner engagement and support were critical to achieving the ambitious outcomes of this project. The Regional Estuaries Initiative had a dedicated coordinator who drove partnerships and ensured the project is delivered in a timely and effective manner. The Initiative was delivered by collaboration across State, local and Commonwealth government agencies, regional natural resource management groups, catchment councils and the community for united planning and action.

Estuaries are unique and vibrant places that support businesses, communities, tourism, recreational and commercial fishing and port activities. Together, we continue to build a better understanding of current estuary health, sharing this information with all estuary users to guide future management and planning.

This website has been developed as a key resource for the community, with complex scientific information presented in a community friendly format to support consultation and engagement, and help inform decisions on management actions. New and up-to-date science and information is added regularly.

Subscribe to our news for updates and opportunities to get involved. We issue regular community updates and hold events to allow people to learn more about their local waterways and contribute to estuary improvements.

Sustainable agriculture

Nutrient run-off from agricultural land represents the largest source of nutrients entering estuaries in south-west catchments. Excess nutrients entering waterways from fertiliser and effluent reduces water quality, and this can lead to algal blooms, low oxygen and fish deaths. The Regional Estuaries Initiative worked with catchment and industry groups and farmers to reduce the nutrient run-off from farms. This strategy focused on two key areas – fertiliser management and dairy effluent management.

The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development estimates that farmers in Western Australia apply around $400 million per year of phosphorus in excess of the amounts required for desired productivity. Getting fertiliser management right on farms will benefit both farmer’s productivity and water quality in our estuaries.

The Sustainable Agriculture strategy worked with farmers to optimise fertiliser use by providing incentives for soil testing, nutrient mapping and agronomic advice for over 400 properties. This supported farmers to make informed fertiliser decisions so fertilisers and profits stayed on the farm. Find out more about the fertiliser management program.

The Sustainable Agriculture strategy also carried out a comparative evaluation of Fert$mart and Whole Farm Nutrient Mapping .

Good effluent management on dairy farms is important on and off the farm. Benefits include money saved on fertiliser, improved soil condition and moisture retention due to organic matter, reduced nutrient losses from farms and productivity gains.

The Regional Estuaries Initiative worked with Western Dairy, farmers, industry and catchment groups to promote best practice in dairy effluent management. Through DairyCare, the program reviewed dairy effluent systems and developed best practice management plans. In partnership with dairy farmers, 20 priority effluent systems were upgraded.

DairyCare and Western Dairy:

provided farmers with information and tools to make better fertiliser decisions
supported upgrades to dairy effluent systems
investigated innovative options for improving dairy effluent management
helped build industry capacity to lead and deliver better outcomes for dairy farms

Water in the Landscape

As water flows across the landscape it can be filtered and cleaned in natural systems like streams and wetlands, but it can also mobilise contaminants, nutrients and sediments from rural and urban land uses. There are many ways we can improve how water moves through the catchment to improve water quality in our estuaries.

Clearing for agriculture has often removed riparian vegetation (vegetation on the banks of rivers and streams) and stock have unimpeded access to streams and drains. This can lead to degradation, sedimentation and infilling of rivers, wetlands and estuaries.

Re-establishing functional rivers and streams enhances the uptake and removal of nutrients and improves ecological and amenity values. Healthy riparian zones are the most effective measure of improved river health and water quality.

Together with catchment groups, community members and land holders, the Regional Estuaries Initiative fenced more than 240 kilometres of priority waterways to exclude stock and planted more than 70 hectares of foreshore. Outreach and extension programs have enhanced farmer knowledge and skills for managing land use around waterways.

Restoring stream function through stock exclusion fencing and revegetation reduces soil erosion and organic loading while also enhancing the uptake and removal of nutrients.

Almost all of the at-risk estuaries receive water from extensive engineered drainage networks originally designed to drain the vast wetlands of the Swan Coastal Plain for urban and agricultural development. These drainage networks are still used for lowering high groundwater levels and preventing flooding of farmland and urban centres. While they usually do a good job of keeping our feet dry, drains can move water through the landscape so quickly that they pick up organic matter, sediments and nutrients along the way and discharge them to our estuaries. This can lead to algal blooms, low oxygen, and fish deaths.

Drainage waters can be treated to improve the quality of water delivered to our estuaries. It is challenging to treat large volumes of water carrying high nutrient and organic loads, especially in the winter when the landscape can be waterlogged. Drains can also have complex ownership arrangements and management responsibilities, with multiple landowners, service providers, local and State Government agencies involved.

The Regional Estuaries Initiative treated five major drainage sites with innovative science to trap nutrients and improve water quality. The works are focussed on Peel Main, Punrak, Dirk Brook, Nambeelup and Gull Road drains, which flow to the Serpentine River, and Mayfield Drain, to the Harvey Estuary. The works were delivered in partnership with the Peel-Harvey Catchment Council, Water Corporation, farmers and landholders.

Nutrients and organic matter from urban areas contribute significantly to poor water quality, especially in waterways with restricted circulation. Stormwater runoff can carry contaminants from industry and fertilisers from urban areas to our estuaries. For healthy estuaries, stormwater from urban areas often needs treatment.

Water sensitive urban design is a land planning and engineering design approach that integrates the urban water cycle – including stormwater, groundwater, wastewater management and water supply – into urban design to minimise environmental degradation and improve aesthetic and recreational appeal. In Western Australia, Better Urban Water Management provides a framework for how water resources should be considered at each planning stage.

The Regional Estuaries Initiative supported local governments to develop and implement best practice urban water management by providing support and matching funding for activities such as:

Stormwater retrofits and upgrades to reduce nutrients and organic matter in Albany and Bunbury
Collaboration with developers and local government to expand the use of water sensitive urban design in new urban areas
Urban fertiliser behaviour change programs to promote efficient fertiliser use in home gardens, and
Garden workshops for the community and industry.

Innovative remediation

The Innovative Remediation strategy, under the Regional Estuaries Initiative, tested new technologies for nutrient management and gathering evidence to see if they can be used at a catchment scale. The strategy developed and trialled these new technologies to reduce nutrient losses to waterways from urban and rural land uses and improve soil condition for plant growth.

By developing and testing new treatment options, we can produce solutions to achieve value-for-money outcomes for our estuaries, supporting both environmental and economic needs.

Techniques to treat soluble phosphorus in waters entering and flowing in agricultural drains were trialled in the Peel-Harvey catchment. A series of in-drain treatment designs incorporating soil amendments were piloted in the nutrient rich Gull Road drain in 2017 and expanded in 2018. The designs consisted of a several treatment bed configurations in the base of the drains as well as swales and riffles. These were intensively monitored to evaluate the benefits, management requirements and risks of treatments.

Learn more.

Water treatment techniques to reduce algal blooms in the short term may be an option to provide respite to estuarine health while longer nutrient reduction activities in the catchment are realised. By testing treatments that lock up soluble phosphorus and treat algal blooms, we will identify when and where these approaches work best.

Several new high-capacity phosphate binding clays were trialled as in-stream dosing agents in the upper Serpentine catchment (Peel-Harvey) and for dosing large pools in the lower Vasse River (Vasse-Geographe).

Some of the clays incorporate the benefits of nanotechnology and require working with innovative partners to upscale these for field trials. Evaluation of the materials focused on working out application regimes and techniques to maximise how these take up soluble phosphorus either in-stream or from sediments. Algal flocculating materials were also evaluated in combination with clay applications to treat algae once these bloom in large water bodies.

The Regional Estuaries Initiative is investigated the effectiveness of a newly developed clay at three sites.

Learn more.

Science for management

Scientific understanding is key to effective management of estuaries and their catchments. A good understanding of the catchment pressures and the complex estuarine responses to the inflows from the catchments supports evidence-based decision-making. By tracking estuarine health over time, we are then able to evaluate our management efforts. The Science for Management strategy of the Regional Estuaries Initiative built the knowledge and evidence-base needed to support our regional estuaries. The strategy worked in three linked areas: monitoring, synthesis and modelling.

We monitor water quality within freshwater rivers and streams to understand pressures on our estuaries from catchment land uses. Through out the Regional Estuaries Initiative we sampled water quality at more than 50 sites. These data were typically collected fortnightly and included measurements of dissolved oxygen, pH, turbidity, conductivity, temperature, suspended solids, dissolved carbon and filtered and total nutrients. Monitored sites and the state’s flow gauging network allow our modelling team to build hydrological catchment models to trace sources and quantities of nutrients leaving our catchments.

Monitoring estuarine water quality allows us to evaluate the response and condition of our estuaries to inflows from the catchments. We analyse the water to understand the dissolved oxygen, pH, stratification, nutrient concentrations and microalgal activity. Understanding the presence, abundance and species of algae and seagrasses helps us understand how healthy our estuaries are. We identify the species of microalgae present and keep an eye out for harmful species and extremely high abundance of microalgae – both symptoms that the estuary is out of balance. We also collect information about the extent and condition of seagrass in these estuaries. Seagrass is considered a ‘canary’ of the marine environment, as it lives on the seabed and requires good water and sediment quality to thrive. Seagrass is a key habitat in many of our estuaries, and its condition also informs on the health of our estuaries.

Pulling together disparate pieces of information to create an overall picture of estuarine health is critical to achieving the best value from our monitoring efforts. Our experts take discrete scientific studies and integrate the knowledge into a conceptual understanding of each estuarine system.

By understanding the processes underway in our estuaries we can ensure that the models we build are meaningful. We can also use this synthesised knowledge to predict how the estuary might respond to drivers such as climate change, land-use pressures and proposed management actions in a qualitative way.

Numerical computer-based models are increasingly being used in environmental decision-making worldwide. Successful models require adequate data at the relevant time-step and scale, as well as a sound conceptual understanding of the system being modelled. The Regional Estuaries Initiative supported the development of catchment models and estuarine-response models.

Catchment models were developed or updated using the SOURCE platform, adapted to WA hydrology. These allow us to identify catchment nutrient sources and determine appropriate management actions that will improve stream and estuarine health.

Estuary-response models show how these systems respond to change, and assist managers to understand the complexities of estuarine ecosystems, including the responses to future land use, management or climate scenarios. For our estuarine response models, the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation partnered with UWA to deliver cutting-edge decision support tools.