The adaptive management of rivers occurs over a variety of scales from the management of individual wetlands, through large icon sites to the river as a whole.  As a consequence, management or a river system can require gathering large amounts of information over time on discrete variables. These can be collected at a variety of scales in an effort to both identify progress toward objectives and prioritise future restoration actions.  While specific questions about cause and effect on one variable of interest may be answered, translating the information into a form that can be used in the adaptive management processes to optimise future actions has historically presented a challenge.

Monitoring programs that assess a number of different variables over a range of temporal and spatial scales, face a particular challenge in integrating the full suite of monitoring information into a clear story about what the management actions have achieved. An example of this is the monitoring program for The Living Murray Initiative. Monitoring in The Living Murray has a focus on monitoring fish, waterbirds and vegetation.  The Living Murray Monitoring Program has recognised the challenges of synthesising the full range of data from multiple variables and temporal and spatial scales and has worked toward addressing them. 

This talk will discuss these challenges and how The Living Murray has begun addressing them. In particular, how it developed an annual synthesis report that makes sense of the full range of monitoring information along with hydrological data and broader climate information.