Key Sites – Land use to manage water and salt

Key Sites is a state-wide hydrology research project generating new knowledge in priority water catchments of NSW. It comprises eight sites in areas identified as being major salinity sources. Each site addresses a different and locally relevant gap in salinity knowledge.

The project is investigating the impact of all major land uses on water and salt movement, including: annual cropping, improved annual and perennial pasture, native pasture, native forestry, planted forestry and rehabilitated open cut coal mining.

The knowledge being generated is enhancing the capacity of Catchment Management Authorities, researchers, farm advisors and agricultural extension services to deliver meaningful advice to farmers about systems that best manage water and salinity at a paddock and farm scale. It is producing data that ‘ground truths’ the range of salinity models, ensuring models are generating results that are consistent with actual catchment observations.

Key Sites is funded by the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality and combines the hydrology research of three different State agencies. It is integrated with the NAP funded “Beyond Salinity Solutions” project which provides a range of socio-economic models to evaluate salinity management options as well as education and training programs.  These are for CMA staff, private sector and government agency technical and extension specialists.

Key Sites is delivering results that challenge conventional thinking on the effective management of water and salt in NSW.

More information (journals, conference papers, reports) relating to the Key Sites project is available from the publications page.

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