Water Quality Monitoring & Management

Overview

About the Lecturer

Leon Bren

Leon’s basic training was in forestry and forestry science. He earned a PhD in the hydrology of a small mountain stream from the University of Melbourne and then taught and researched at this institution for some decades in subjects such as roading, forest harvesting, forest hydrology, and forest management.

Research work included paired watershed studies, geometry of stream buffer strips, and the hydrology of river red gum forests along Australia’s River Murray. After retirement from this organisation he did consultancy work for some years. In 2014 he produced a text-book “Forest Hydrology and Catchment Management; an Australian Perspective”. This has sold well internationally, and an enlarged and revised second edition is scheduled for publication next month. He also collaborated on an international reference book on forest hydrology and was lead author in a text book on hydrology and watershed management for student revision published at the end of last year.

He is currently working on an environmental history and guidebook entitled “Lake Corangamite – Victoria’s Unloved Lake” He is also hoping to start of block of work on the history of conflicts over Melbourne’s water catchments. He lives in the Victorian provincial city of Ballarat and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Creswick Campus of the University of Melbourne.

2.7.1 Water quality overview

  • Quantitative hydrology
  • Basics of water quality measurement

2.7.2 Key water quality parameters in forestry

  • Sediment
  • Turbidity
  • pH
  • Herbicides and other sprays
  • Biological oxygen demand
  • Conductivity and salinity

2.7.3 Managing water quality issues

  • Buffer separation from active areas – the single most effective way
  • Streams and drainage lines – don’t get them confused
  • Where do you find yourself in conflicts?
  • Don’t get involved in water-sampling wars unless you are prepared for a big effort
  • Strategies when you face groundless allegations of water quality impairment
  • Mounting and running a “forest water quality” measurement campaign