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Report cards have become an increasingly utilised communication tool for aquatic ecosystem health monitoring programs in Australia and around the world.

They enable complex, systematically collected, scientific information from multiple sources to be summarised and communicated in a way that facilitates broad understanding and encourages discussion. The report card uses the best available independent science, including results from more than $4 million of existing regional monitoring programs. It integrates a range of datasets from the upper catchments, through the estuaries, to inshore and offshore marine water quality.

The 2017- 2022 5 year Program Design has been prepared by the Healthy Rivers to Reef Partnership’s Technical Officers with support from the Technical Working Group. It was reviewed and endorsed by the  Healthy Rivers to Reef Partnership and the Reef 2050 Plan Independent Science Panel (ISP). It is specific to the region and has been created as a framework to guide the development of the report card, with technical reports providing further support.

Information on the region, potential data sources, linkages with other programs, and reporting zones for the 2017 report card and beyond are all contained within the Program Design. The document details the indicators and indicator categories that are and will continue to be used to report on the environmental condition of freshwater basins, estuaries, inshore and offshore marine environments, and the social, economic, and cultural indicators, and indicator categories.

You can download our Program design here