for each of these longer term will also be poor. cyclones and community types system stain storm surges. to recover. emerging in Where wetlands Good where relation to occur on the edge secondary of wet tropical or wetlands occur pressures (e.g. upland outside of the sea weed infestation, biogeographic / level rise water quality climatic inundation zone or decline, structural boundaries and in the longer term and composition climate change on inland changes). pushes these boundary of the sites into drier, ultimate sea level Good where hotter climatic rise inundation water resource settings with zone once sea infrastructure different flow level rise reduces connectivity regimes e.g. wet to median impacts are tropics to historical rates or avoided or fully seasonal dry stabilises. mitigated (e.g. off tropics the stream storage, adaptive capacity biota bypass of the existing channels) and/or communities flow / extraction particularly to impacts are below novel; pressures thresholds that such as fire and drive ecosystem flow cessation will change including be poor. via targeting components of Moderate natural natural flow adaption capacity regime that allow to climate change for maintenance will be associated of key flow or with: connectivity wetlands that associated have not had ecological their resilience processes and undermined by functions (e.g. other site or baseflows, catchment
for each of these community types to recover. longer term system stain emerging in relation to secondary pressures (e.g. weed infestation, water quality decline, structural and composition changes). Good where water resource infrastructure connectivity impacts are avoided or fully mitigated (e.g. off stream storage, biota bypass channels) and/or flow / extraction impacts are below thresholds that drive ecosystem change including via targeting components of natural flow regime that allow for maintenance of key flow or connectivity associated ecological processes and functions (e.g. baseflows, will also be poor. Where wetlands occur on the edge of wet tropical or upland biogeographic / climatic boundaries and climate change pushes these sites into drier, hotter climatic settings with different flow regimes e.g. wet tropics to seasonal dry tropics the adaptive capacity of the existing communities particularly to novel; pressures such as fire and flow cessation will be poor. Moderate natural adaption capacity to climate change will be associated with: wetlands that have not had their resilience undermined by other site or catchment cyclones and storm surges. Good where wetlands occur outside of the sea level rise inundation zone or in the longer term on inland boundary of the ultimate sea level rise inundation zone once sea level rise reduces to median historical rates or stabilises.
Vulnerability_Assessment_Freshwater_wetlands.docx