On-ground River Protection & Restoration

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2009:

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Student Support and Engagement Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Overview, Learning Outcomes, Assessment and Generic Skills sections of this entry.

It is University policy to take all reasonable steps to minimise the impact of disability upon academic study, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enhance a student's participation in the University's programs. Students who feel their disability may impact on meeting the requirements of this subject are encouraged to discuss this matter with a Faculty Student Adviser and Student Equity and Disability Support: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/disability

This subject is concerned with demonstrating how a series of "Principles of Natural Resources Management" apply to the selection, design and implementation of on-ground river and water protection and restoration projects. The content will focus at an activity level and at a site scale. Subject material will present a range of techniques but will focus on understanding selection and applicability (rather than providing a prescriptive methodology that is better suited to written manuals). The subject will complement the new manual being written for the Department of Sustainability and Environment: "Technical Guidelines for Waterway Management".

The "Principles of Natural Resources Management" deal with:

achieving balance,

promoting stewardship,

landscape scale change,

adaptive management,

proactive management,

flexible programs that are enabling not prescriptive.

Topics will include techniques for:

stakeholder engagement,

riparian restoration (particularly vegetation management),

controlling exotic species,

instream habitat,

fishways,

achieving environmental flows in rivers and wetlands,

maximising effectiveness of environmental flows,

managing water quality,

floodplain management,

reconnecting rivers and floodplains,

managing sand and sediment,

erosion control, and

responding to floods, wildfires and other natural disasters.

The structured remote learning component will review available techniques and familiarise students with their selection and application as preparation for activity sessions during the four-day intensive component of the subject. Students will also work remotely on their project, which for this subject will involve the selection and application of a technique in response to a real catchment management issue from their workplace. The four-day intensive face-to-face session will focus on the knowledge needed to select and apply particular techniques and use of the "Guidelines". As the fulcrum of this session, students will select and apply techniques in real situations, with their work subject to review by a panel including specialists, a contractor, a landowner and an experienced waterway manager. There will also be a presentation dealing with managing staff, contractors, consultants and the Board.

A one-hour written test on techniques and their applicability (10 percent)

Group "site assessment" exercise. Equivalent to 1,000 words each plus participation (20 percent)

Tutorial exercises and short tests during the intensive phase (10 percent)

Individual project report(s) equivalent to a 4,000 word assignment (50 percent)

500 word (equivalent) ongoing critique of the subject's relevance to the key natural resources management principles (10 percent)

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.

On the successful completion of this subject students will:

• be able to describe the seven Principles of Natural Resource Management;

• understand how the principles apply to selection and application of techniques at a project level;

• exhibit analytical and problem-solving skills in selecting and applying catchment management techniques at a project level;

• understand the limitations of decision-making at project level and the need for projects to be part of broad-based activity programs serving broad catchment management objectives; and

• be familiar with creating and acquiring the knowledge necessary for successful implementation of techniques.