Improving water quality outcomes through real-time quality monitoring: Final report

Effective and reliable, continuous nitrate groundwater sensor monitoring has significant potential for application at the catchment level over several years – to help support a better understanding of the dynamic and often elevated nitrate concentration in the local groundwater and groundwater feed streams. A survey we conducted on 18 of the projects field day participants predicted that the time to near peak adoption would be 13 years with 75% of participants adopting the technology. ‘Environmental advantage’ was identified as the most significant influence on peak adoption; a large environment advantage was predicted to increase peak adoption from 75% to 88%, signalling adoption levels are likely to be higher in at-risk catchments that require freshwater improvements. This project demonstrates that a successful community science programme could be developed in collaboration with scientists, project managers, and landowners to ensure the ease of use, robustness of data for research use, and analysis and dissemination of meaningful results to the community. The project also found that hard data provided a renewed focus to catchment groups. This could facilitate a refreshed approach to farm nitrogen management, supporting flexible and adaptive management responding with mitigation actions to adverse effects of farming activities observed in the results.