Part 6Monitoring and reporting

# Part 6 Monitoring and reporting Part 6 Monitoring and reporting Monitoring compliance with the requirements of management plans, benchmarking and assessing changes in the state of our water ecosystems and in the economic and social factors influenced by water management actions, is clearly an essential component of the cyclic management planning established by the [Water Management Act 2000](/view/html/inforce/current/act-2000-092). It is therefore required that water management provides for the collection of information which will allow: > • assessment of performance against the management targets, > • assessment of social and economic impacts, and > • benchmarking of current conditions and evaluation of future trends in respect to the long term outcomes. A performance assessment strategy covering these three aspects will be established within six months of the gazettal of this SWMOP. Management plans developed under the [Water Management Act 2000](/view/html/inforce/current/act-2000-092) should provide for the monitoring of performance of relevant local management targets and this information will be collated and reviewed to assess performance against the SWMOP targets. The Minister may provide guidance on objectives, strategies and performance indicators for this purpose (as required in a management plan under Section 35 (1) of the Act). The monitoring and assessment of the long term outcomes, however, will be designed and undertaken through statewide programs and targeted local activities which ensure that sampling and analysis is carried out at a scale and density appropriate to deliver meaningful and cost effective information. Several programs are already in place to monitor the physical, chemical and biological status and response of aquatic systems (eg. Integrated Monitoring of Environmental Flow (IMEF), fish, wetlands and waterbird surveys). Other programs provide social and economic data relevant to the analysis of social and economic responses to water management. Performance monitoring for this SWMOP will build, as far as possible, on these existing programs.