Wetland methods that are useful within natural resource management are often required to be rapid, and allow representation of function and diversity over relevant times and space. This is the case of monitoring methods used for environmental flow assessment in Murray Darling wetlands (southeast Australia). Each wetland is unique in terms of species composition, chemistry and flow regime; and all of these measures have unique responses in time and space.

This study uses rapid assessment approaches for trees and plant groundcover based on previous data, and to inform wetland health for real-time water management

Water Sharing Plans require ecosystem function and diversity to be preserved through river operating rules and their implementation, and to this end we consider how well this approach addresses these concepts.