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Salinity Management in the North East Catchment Management Region

Statewide - Salinity Management | Salinity Indicator Plants | Understanding Salinity | Salinity Action Plan 2007 | Reversing the trend - North East Salinity Strategy 1997 | Salinity Provinces in the North East CMA

The threat of dryland salinity is a relatively new phenomenon in the North East region only manifesting itself in the last 50 or so years. Rising ground water trends through the 1990’s led to an increase in saline sites being identified and in community and agency interest in salinity in the region. The Department of Primary Industries (DPI) and Catchment Management Authority (CMA) responded to this threat by implementing the North East Salinity Strategy affectionately known as “NESSI”.

A key focus of NESSI was to increase community awareness of salinity, as there was a perception that salinity did not occur in the region. This lead to the development of a variety of educational materials, technical and monitoring reports specific to the region. In 2002 a review of NESSI was undertaken, with the findings used in the development of the Draft North East Salinity Action Plan 2007. Activities such as on-ground works, research and raising community awareness continue to be implemented across the region in salinity priority areas.

Across the region there are 240 mapped saline discharge sites covering 1,311 hectares. Of these salinity sites 36% are located within 50m of a waterway, and 54% are located within 100m of a waterway. Each year approximately 180,000 tonnes of salt is exported annually from the river systems.

The variety of plans, technical reports and educational materials that have been produced can be accessed from the VRO Website.

There is a range of Salinity Publications available for download on the VRO website. These include:

  • Managing Dryland Salinity with Vegetation in North East Victoria
  • Groundwater Monitoring Summary – Year 2000
  • Is it Salt?
  • Understanding Salinity
  • Managing Dryland Salinity with Perennial Vegetation
  • North East Salinity Strategy, Surface Water Salinity - Ovens Catchments
  • Heartlands: Achieving Landscape Change in the Byawatha Hills

Copies of the North East Sustainability & Science Information (NESSI) Newsletter area available for download on the VRO website.

Related Links

Murray-Darling Basin Salinity Management Strategy. Information about the 15 year Basin Salinity Management Strategy (2001-2015) on the Murray Darling Basin Commission website (external link). Includes downloadable documents.

Murray-Darling Basin Salinity Audit (external link). Provides detailed predictions for all major river valleys in the Murray-Darling Basin for the next 20, 50 and 100 years.

Effectiveness of Current Farming Systems in the Control of Dryland Salinity. (external link) A downloadable CSIRO publication on the Murray Darling Basin Commission website. To view the information PDF requires the use of a PDF reader. This can be installed for free from the Adobe website (external link).

The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Australia website provides a range of documents related to Salinity Risk Management (external link) in Australia (including: the salinity problem; integrated salt risk characterisation and salinity risk management).


Information about salinity on the Australian Academy of Sciences website (external link).


The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Science and Innovation tabled its report on June 21st 2004 - entitled Science overcoming salinity: Coordinating and extending the science to address the nation's salinity problem (external link). A copy of the entire report is available for download on the Parliament of Australia House of Representatives website.

The Australian Government's Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry website provides a range of salinity information (external link) (including major programs and initiatives, research and development, salinity advice and salinity monitoring and assessment) as well as information about the National Dryland Salinity Program (external link) (including salinity mapping methods, Groundwater Flow Systems, desalinisation technologies and the Australian Dryland Salinity Assessment 2000).

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