A fence catches sediment and debris washing into a waterway after the January fires.
Water managers are working to protect the region’s rivers after January’s bushfires left large areas of the Goulburn Broken catchment vulnerable to ash and sediment run-off.
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The Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority’s environmental water manager, Simon Casanelia, said the fires presented challenges for catchment management, including sediment and ash build-up in waterways.
“Damaged or loss of vegetation means that sediments can be more prone to mobilising,” Mr Casanelia said.
When vegetation is stripped from hillsides and riverbanks, high rainfall events can wash ash, soil and nutrients into rivers and dams, increasing turbidity and lowering water oxygen levels needed by aquatic life.
The heavy rain in the past couple weeks has already had an impact on the catchment.
The authority has said that it is monitoring flows and quality parameters, ready to respond.
At-risk native fish have already been relocated to a local hatchery facility as a precautionary measure.
To help mitigate further impacts, the authority has provided more than 4000 hay bales to farmers in the past month.
The bales act as a substitute for vegetation lost in the fires, helping to filter surface water flows and improve stability.
The GBCMA has been using hay bales to prevent runoff in bushfire affected areas
Mr Casanelia said the authority was also delivering environmental flows into the river system to help dilute sediment and contaminants entering waterways.
He said increasing delivery through the system improved water quality and provided benefits for native fish and riverbank vegetation.
The authority said the water was allocated to environmental flows, providing a much-needed boost to the system, which had suffered after a year of low rainfall and several heatwaves.
Environmental flows will continue through autumn, with water deliveries timed to minimise disruption to community use of waterways during busy periods, such as the Easter long weekend.
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