5 BURDEKIN DRY TROPICS NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PLAN 2016-2026
4.3 Land
Land resources are finite, and need to be appropriately planned for and managed to ensure their ongoing economic and environmental productivity. Land managers and community groups need a range of support, including training, extension, and easy access to available information on the condition of our natural resources and how to best manage them. With over 97.4 per cent of our region being rural, ultimately a large part of NRM governance is carried out by graziers and farmers through their own initiative and funds, as well as through partnerships with industry and government that provide flow-on benefits throughout the community.
The strategies in our plan aim to:
• provide land managers with information, training and extension that support best management practices;
• ensure significant projects and infrastructure development incorporate measures to protect and manage natural resources, including groundwater and downstream impacts;
• consider land capacity prior to expanding new irrigated and dryland cropping areas;
• ensure land use planning prevents increased development in natural hazard areas;
• support land managers to better identify the capability of their land, adopt innovative management techniques, and employ best management practices that improve land condition;
• provide regional strategic direction for land management and long-term improvement in soil health;
• reduce adverse impacts of pests and weeds on agricultural land productivity;
• prioritise soil health by supporting the development and promotion of innovative methods to maintain and increase soil carbon and soil chemistry within cropping, horticulture and grazing systems;
• avoid or, where it is occurring, remediate gully and stream bank erosion;
• reduce the extent of dryland salinity and protect the environment from the impacts of disturbing acid sulfate soils; and
• reduce risks to community safety, the environment and rural activities from abandoned mines, processing plants and exploration activities.
4.4 Water
The region’ s community identified water as the most important resource requiring management and protection. Major issues include increasing demand for water, quality of water entering GBR-connected waterways and Bowling Green Bay wetlands, and altered surface and groundwater interactions in the Lower Burdekin sub-catchment.
The community and governments have a strong commitment to protect the GBR as an exceptional natural resource. The major threats to the health of the GBR are declining water quality, coastal development and climate change. Increased sediment, nutrient and pesticide runoff from agricultural land uses are the greatest cause of declining water quality on the GBR. The Burdekin River catchment generates the single largest source of suspended sediment to the whole GBR( Bainbridge, et al., 2013).
Increased investment in the past 10 years has helped us to better understand water resource condition and to provide support to tackle declining water quality, but more is needed. Land managers in our region need the information and support to continue to adopt innovative and improved land and water management practices.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The strategies in our plan aim to:
• ensure that water resources are sustainably managed, and that planning decisions incorporate environmental values, and pressures from climate change, increased demand and development;
• promote the adoption of water-efficient technology and water-efficient urban and industrial use and farming practices;
• manage environmental flows for the health of natural ecosystems, for example to allow for drying and wet seasonal flushes of coastal wetland ecosystems;
• promote activities that ensure groundwater table levels and salinity concentrations in the Lower Burdekin are maintained at optimum levels;
• support efforts to reduce nutrient and sediment loads to the GBR, to achieve targets identified in the