Bellinger River Health Program 2017-2022: DPE Science, Water Quality and Macroinvertebrate data

In response to the strong community interest in the Bellinger River turtle population, and a publicly perceived link between turtle mortality and poor water quality, a citizen science program was developed in 2017. This is now known as Bellingen Riverwatch, a high resolution, long-term community led water quality monitoring program, covering the Bellinger and Kalang rivers and their tributaries.\r\nInitial discussions with stakeholders identified a strong community interest and investment in river health. It was also identified that, in order to maximise the effectiveness of information collected by the community, a concurrent scientific monitoring program be developed to provide quality assurance and to utilise the community data when reporting. In support of Riverwatch the government-based Bellinger River Health Program (BRHP) was commenced in 2017 by the Estuaries and Catchments Team in the Water, Wetlands and Coasts Science Branch in the Environment, Energy and Science Division of DPIE. (formerly OEH). \r\nThis dataset is the water quality and aquatic macroinvertebrate data collected for the BRHP by the DPIE Estuaries and Catchments Team. It includes the water quality data collected for the program between autumn 2017 and autumn 2022 and macroinvertebrate data collected from autumn 2018 to autumn 2022. While there were macroinvertebrate samples collected in 2017 quality control and assurance analysis unfortunately led to removal of these samples from the data set.

针对公众对贝林格河（Bellinger River）龟类种群的高度关注，以及民众普遍认为龟类死亡与水质恶化存在关联的情况，相关方于2017年启动了一项公民科学（citizen science）项目。该项目如今名为贝林格河观测计划（Bellingen Riverwatch），是一项高分辨率、长期的社区主导型水质监测项目，监测范围覆盖贝林格河、卡兰河（Kalang River）及其支流。
初期与利益相关方（stakeholders）的磋商表明，社区对河流健康抱有极高的关注度与投入热情。为最大化社区采集数据的应用效能，项目团队同步搭建了一套科学监测方案，用于开展质量控制与质量保证，并在报告编制环节整合社区采集的数据。为支持贝林格河观测计划，新南威尔士州规划与产业部（DPIE）环境、能源与科学司下属的水、湿地与海岸科学分支河口与流域团队，于2017年启动了政府主导的贝林格河健康项目（Bellinger River Health Program, BRHP），该部门前身为环境与遗产办公室（OEH）。
本数据集为DPIE河口与流域团队为BRHP采集的水质与水生大型无脊椎动物（aquatic macroinvertebrate）数据，涵盖2017年秋季至2022年秋季的项目配套水质监测数据，以及2018年秋季至2022年秋季的大型无脊椎动物采样数据。尽管2017年已采集到相关大型无脊椎动物样本，但受质量控制与质量保证分析流程限制，该批次样本最终被移除出本数据集。