4 CHAPTER: Creek Rehabilitation Plans
4.1 Introduction
It is estimated that as many as 90% of creek rehabilitation projects occuring within a given catchment occur without a detailed rehabilitation plan being in place. There are often Landholder agreements but these are different to a rehabilitaion plan. A rehabilitation plan contains a range of specific topics includig; the goals of the project, the budget, the plant species to be used and the desired outcomes of the project.
Ideally a rehabiliation plan, even a simple one, would be generated for every project with a budget over $1,000. You wouldn’t build a house or even a new kitchen without a basic plan in place and a creek rehabilitation project is no different. Without a plan to follow, even if it is modified during the project, the risk of things going wrong and money being wasted is very high.
Large scale rehabilitation projects covering many km’s of waterway, where there are multiple landholders, multiple stakeholders and sizable budgets are more likely to have detailed rehabilitation plans. Information for preparing rehabilitation plans for projects with large budgets is available in a fairly wide range of publications. This liturature highlights the important elements of rehabilitation plans and also the processes that can be used to obtain the information on which plans should be based.
(Information about these large scale rehabilitation plans can be found in liturature such as such as xxxx and xxxxx or through employing large private sector consultancies.)
However for smaller scale projects it is not practicle to generate one off rehabilitaton plans. For these projects which are by far the most common, what is needed is a basic rehabilitation plan template which can easily be custimised by local communities and practictioners. Unfortunately the time of writing this book there are currently no standarised formats for Creek (or waterway) rehabilitation plans available. The format of a standardised rehabilitation plan for rural scale projects has been proposed in the the back of this book as appendix xxxx.
The rest of this Chapter should be read, as with the rest of the book, with the context of smaller scale, one or two km of creek length, rural creek rehabilitation projects in mind.
4.2 Why have a rehabilitation plan?
Rehilitation plans are useful for the following reasons:
1. Everyone is singing from the same hym sheet
2. There is a far higher chance that works will be done more closely to best practice
3. It is not unusual for a project to veer off course at different times with plan it is easier to keep the project on track in the first place and if it does start to loose focus to refocus
4. Mointor the project once the intial works have been undertaken
5. Access the success and failures of the project so that that knowledge can be incorporated into future projects
4.3 Who should write/contribute to a rehabilitation plan
Ideally a rehabilitation plan should be authored by an individual who is a professional in the field of environmental rehabilitation with particular experience in waterway rehabilitation. If a professional person is not availble to help with the plan there are often members of the local water authority or Landcare group who has gained a good level of understanding of the key issues through having worked in the field for a number of years.
The other parties that shoud/could be asked to contribute to the plan are the landholder, members of the local environmental group, if there is one, and a representative of the local government organisation that deals with the health of local waterways.
4.4 What should a rehabilitation plan contain?
At its most basic all rehabilitation plans should contain:
1. A written description of the location of the project
2. The landholders name and contact details
3. Who is writting the plan
4. An aerial overlay of the site
5. A description of the existing conditions at the project site
6. The goals of the project
7. The size of the budget
8. A list of plant species and numbers
9. A proposed schedule of works
10. Who will be undertaking the works; landholder, Landcare contractors etc.
11. A time line
12. A proposed maintenance schedule
13. A proposed method of accessing the level of success of the project
4.5 Format
The format of a rehabilitation plan can range from a couple of A4 pages with an accompanying aerial overlay of the site based on an existing template to a multi page one off document containing a high level of detail produced by a commercial business. If budget is not an issue then the complexity of the plan should take into account the people that will be executing the plan. While a highly detailed plan may always seem to be the best option, if those executing or agreeing to it are not able to feel comfortable using it then a simpler plan may be more suitable.
4.6 Use
Once a plan is generated then it makes sense to follow the plan as closely as possible. This does not mean that changes can not occur, in fact it is possible that making changes to the plan as the project progresses is desirable in order to adjust to unexpected circumstances. However it is always a good idea to record on the plan or on an attachment what changes have been decided upon. In this way people will be able to remember why a change was made, and for those undertaking future projects to learn from past projects such as this one.