The Ecosystem Health Monitoring Program (EHMP) is one of the most comprehensive marine, estuarine and freshwater monitoring programs in Australia. The EHMP was established by the South East Queensland Healthy Waterways Partnership (SEQHWP) to assess the effectiveness of management and planning activities aimed at improving South East Queensland's (SEQ's) waterways. The Partnership releases an annual assessment of ecological health in the form of a Report Card, in which 19 major catchments, 18 estuaries and nine zones within Moreton Bay are graded from 'A' (excellent) to 'F' (fail).

The results of the 2009 EHMP Report Card emphasized the connectivity between the region's catchments, waterways and Moreton Bay, with significant declines in the ecosystem health of SEQ's estuaries and bay zones. The overall health of Moreton Bay declined from B- (in 2008) to D (in 2009). This was caused by the discharge of extremely high loads of sediment and nutrients from the catchments as a result of the heavy rainfall across the region during the 2008-2009 monitoring period. Despite this heavy rainfall and the increased nutrient and sediment inputs, there was little change in the overall ecosystem health of freshwater streams, with improvements in biological indicators (macroinvertebrates and fish) resulting from the increased stream flows offset by a slight decline in nutrient cycling. These results highlight the importance of reducing and addressing diffuse source pollution, both rural and urban to improve waterway health in South East Queensland.

The 2008-2009 Annual Technical Report complements the 2009 Ecosystem Health Report Card by providing scientific background and justification for the Report Card Grades. This year, the entire report has been released online via health-e-waterways.

Over the 2008-2009 monitoring period, there have been significant developments made in setting the foundations for the future of the South East Queensland Healthy Waterways Partnership (SEQHWP) Ecosystem Health Monitoring Program (EHMP), with the launch of health-e-waterways, a state-of-the-art data integration system, and the commencement of a program review of EHMP.

After nearly 10 years of monitoring, the EHMP has collected one of the most comprehensive biophysical datasets of water quality available in Australia. It is therefore timely to review the program and ensure that this evaluation of regional ecosystem health allows a sound understanding of the collective management investments of the Healthy Waterway partners. The main objectives of the EHMP Review are to:

1. To review the principles and objectives of the EHMP;
2. To assess outcomes of EHMP to-date in relation to the original EHMP objectives;
3. To review relevance of current indicators and scope the need for new indicators to better track management investment for waterways outcomes;
4. To make recommendations regarding refinement of the EHMP methodology, so as to ensure that the Program continues to provide the partner-organisations with a relevant and cost effective data collection, synthesis and decision support tools; and
5. To make recommendations on ways to link EHMP with other existing monitoring initiatives.

The conclusions of the review will be released in July 2010, with the outcomes of the review scheduled to be implemented in the 2011-2012 EHMP monitoring year.

The release of the Online Report Card in October 2009, the first product of health-e-waterways, showcased the automatic generation of freshwater EHMP grades and enhanced the communication of the EHMP Report Card results. The aim of the health-e-waterways project is to enable and promote the sharing and collaborative integration and analysis of high quality information concerning our waterways, through a single Web portal. This portal will allow access to water-related data and regional models that can support and improve data management services for South East Queensland Healthy Waterways partner organisations. Work continues on automatically generating the estuarine marine EHMP grades, and developing other tools that assist partners in the assessment of long term trends and the relationships between water quality and various environmental and anthropogenic drivers.

South-east Queensland (SEQ) has a sub-tropical climate. Rainfall is highly variable across the region, throughout the year and from year to year, although higher rainfall usually falls along the coastal zone. Rainfall is influenced both by tropical systems from the north and fluctuations in the high pressure ridge to the south. In a typical year, the minimum rainfall usually occurs during the winter/ spring period, with September the driest month and higher rainfall usually occurring during the warm humid summer period with February the wettest month.

After many years of below-average rainfall, SEQ experienced well above average rainfall in 2008-2009 with the Bureau of Meteorology recording the highest annual rainfall for the past decade. The Pumicestone Passage region received the highest annual rainfall of the five SEQ regions monitored and the Gatton region the least. Thunderstorms occurred over SEQ in most months throughout the reporting period. In 2008-2009, these thunderstorms and other heavy rainfall events produced higher flows in many freshwater catchments than has occurred for some considerable time. Runoff and higher flows caused greatly increased sediment loads in streams and estuaries and flushed sediments (and nutrients) into Moreton Bay and coastal waters. It also considerably reduced average salinities throughout many estuaries although bay zones were less affected because of greater mixing with oceanic waters.