Determining end-point goals and effective strategies for rehabilitation of coastal wetlands: examples from the Burdekin River, North Queensland

Rehabilitating coastal floodplain wetlands is the subject of significant government, industry and community investment. Restoring natural function to wetlands in a highly and permanently modified environment may not be realistic. Health and naturalness may be very different end-points for such wetlands, depending on the landscape context, creating the need for more holistic and expansive evaluations of end-point goals. Commonly, we find that the solutions proposed are often based on generic and simplistic views, including the reversal of the perceived root cause of the problem, though this is not always the best course of action. These simplistic views often result in unrealistic expectations and a failure to target the most effective outcomes and means of rehabilitation. This paper discusses three case studies where end-point goals for wetland rehabilitation are quite different from restoration of their pre-European state, and how elevated turbidity and flow regimes, even though unnatural and often thought of in a negative context, are actually maintaining the health of key coastal wetlands by decreasing their vulnerability to other human pressures. In each case, improved scientific understanding of what is the ultimate driving force of wetland health, and what should be the end-point goal, are being used to drive rehabilitation actions and achieve tangible results.