Oral Presentation 7th Australian Stream Management Conference 2014

Creek link: A citizen science mapping tool (11589)

James Maund 1
  1. Creek link, Melbourne, Victoria, Austrailia

Increasingly local environmental community groups such as Landcare are focusing on creating biodiversity corridors along their local waterways.  As the effectiveness of  a biodiversity corridor increases with length, it is highly desirable to give priority to linking and extending existing areas of healthy waterway.  Unfortunately there is often little detailed information about the existing condition of many of Australia’s waterways.  Without basic information such as where stock have been excluded and where there is significant native vegetation along a waterway it is difficult for community groups to know where to focus their works for greatest impact.  Creek link is a not for profit entity which provides interactive, online, colour coded maps to community groups.  The maps are simple and designed to be somewhat like a child’s colouring in game.  With access to online maps community groups are able to record and visually access key information about the overall condition of their own waterways.  Having ready access to a simple online map enables groups to; make better strategic decisions about where to undertake future works, prepare more detailed and user friendly funding applications, build capacity within the broader community and, perhaps most importantly, to improve morale and a sense of achievement within the group itself.  Combining citizen science with easy to use online maps holds out the prospect of further empowering community groups while at the same time helping them achieve greater levels of environmental impact with their existing works programs.  Additionally the information generated by the community groups could one day prove to be a valuable asset for government agencies, providing otherwise difficult to access information at a fraction of the cost of traditional programs.

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