Little Stringybark Creek was chosen because it provided the best opportunity of providing a measurable response to works in the catchment. It is degraded, but not to a point that would require retention of stormwater from large areas before a response might potentially be expected: which would be very expensive and take decades.

As shown in the adjoining figure (Source: Walsh et al. 2005), the Little Stringybark Creek has a poor SIGNAL score (an index based on the types of macroinvertebrates found at a site) of under 5. However, the level of imperviousness in the catchment is low enough that we could expect a recovery with a reasonable level of stormwater retention and treatment works throughout the catchment.

Walsh, C. J., T. D. Fletcher, and A. R. Ladson. 2005. Stream restoration in urban catchments through re-designing stormwater systems: looking to the catchment to save the stream. Journal of the North American Benthological Society 24:690–705.