Long Oral Presentation 12th Australian Streams Management Conference 2026

Environmental water studies and proposals for environmental water use often have a long shopping list of stated objectives and suggested outcomes.  The extent to which environmental water can influence those objectives and outcomes often varies.  In some cases the environmental water can significantly change the outcome, but in other cases the effect will be negligible.  I suggest that a lack of focus and prioritization of objectives has significant program ramifications:

1. It hinders effective decisions about how best to use available environmental water,
2. It hinders the design and implementation of environmental water monitoring programs, and
3. It sets unrealistic expectations about environmental water outcomes in the broader community.

This talk will use general examples to highlight the problem and outline simple steps that can be taken to focus environmental water studies and environmental water use on things where it can have a meaningful effect.