Hornsby Shire Council has received the 2014 Coastal Management Award for Innovation for its Hawkesbury Watch Program.
The program uses technology to monitor the Hawkesbury Estuary and provide information on daily swimming conditions, estuarine health grades and real time data.
Hornsby Shire Council’s Natural Resources Strategy Manager Dr Peter Coad and Environmental Scientist Dr Ana Rubio recently attended the Coastal Conference to accept the award.
Hornsby Mayor Steve Russell congratulated Dr Coad, Dr Rubio and their team in the Natural Resources department for their work in establishing the Hawkesbury Watch program.
“This award is an excellent achievement for Hornsby Shire Council and demonstrates the strength of our water quality programs, which use cutting edge technology and techniques to monitor the health of our waterways.
“Our natural environment is our most valuable asset in Hornsby Shire, and this program helps to protect it for residents and future generations to enjoy.”
The public can access the water quality information via a website and free mobile phone app, which benefits a wide range of people including industry workers, recreational users, waterway managers and researchers.
The information is gathered from a network of extremely accurate water quality probes, housed within buoys, that collect data every 15 minutes measuring water temperature, salinity, chlorophyll-a and turbidity.
This innovative program was established by Hornsby Shire Council in partnership with NSW Public Works – Manly Hydraulics Laboratory and has been operating since 2004.
