This site is being developed by Chris Walsh. Originally a companion to the Little Stringybark Creek site, it is used to house interactive tools for the analysis and management of stream ecosystems.
Urban stormwater runoff is a major contributor to the degradation of streams that run through urban areas. Here is a web page that discusses how much urban stormwater we need to use to protect our rivers and streams, with a simple calculator to allow you to estimate how much stormwater runoff you could be harvesting from your property.
The Environmental Benefit Calculator, used in the early stages of the Little Stringybark Creek project to aid in choosing the most efficient means of retaining stormwater on properties, has been revised with some additional functionality. This calculator produces graphs that let you determine the optimal size of and optimal uses for rainwater tanks and rain-garden systems on your property.
The macroinvertebrate assemblage prediction tool for the Melbourne region uses the family distribution models developed by Walsh and Webb (2013) to allow interactive predictions of assemblage composition (a good indicator of stream health) in reaches across the region. The models use spatially weighted measures of impervious coverage (an indicator of urban stormwater impact) and forest cover, and the discharge of each reach as predictor variables. The tool allows the user to change these features at each site to make predictions of the effects of possible management actions. The tool is still in development.
Related to the macroinvertebrate assemblage prediction tool, the LUMaR tool allows a user to upload their own macroinvertebrate data (from the Melbourne region) to calculate LUMaR score, a new indicator of stream condition, developed by Walsh and Webb (2013), that provides improved, consistent assessment of urban and forest-loss impacts across the Melbourne region
Nick Bond has developed a tool for calculating and plotting summary statistics from gauged records of stream flow, using his R package hydrostats.
More tools are planned. Stay tuned!
