On-ground River Protection & Restoration

This subject is not offered in 2013.

120 hours total time commitment.

For the purposes of considering requests for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Students Experiencing Academic Disadvantage Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Description, Subject Objectives, Generic Skills and Assessment Requirements of this entry.
The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the disability support scheme can be found at the Disability Liaison Unit website: http://www.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.

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.

• A 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 relevance of the key natural resources management principles (10 percent)

Students will be required on commencement of the subject to sign a statement (in hard copy) that they undertake that all work submitted will be their own, that they understand they may be required to take an examination in the subject if there is any doubt as to the authenticity of their assessed work, and that they understand plagiarism and/or collusion are the basis for disciplinary action.

A study guide and a book of readings is provided to students

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.