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Environmental Water Quality - A Guide To Sampling And Measurement, Richard J. George, Davie Weaver, James Terry

Agriculture reports

The guide covers the problems associated with sampling water in the field and suggestions to overcome them. The main types of water pollution that potentially occur in the south west of Western Australia are discussed and for each contaminant, the origins and environmental effects are briefly described and where available, water quality guidelines are provided for major water uses. This is followed by specific requirements of the collection, storage and analysis of samples. The guide also includes further reading and details on suppliers, analytical costs and web resources.

Salinity Action Plan, Department Of Agriculture And Food, Western Australia

Journal of the Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, Series 4

In November, the Premier of Western Australia, Richard Court, released his governments strategy to tackle one of the State's most serious environmental problems - salinity. This article provides a summary of the action plan, full details are available in a two volum set 'Salinity - a situation statement for Western Australia' and 'Western australian salinity action plan'.

Copies of the reports are available from Publication Section, Agriculture Western Australia, 3 Baron-Hay Court, South Perth 6151. Phone (09) 368 3729

Something Fishy Is Going On - Aquaculture, David Berry

Journal of the Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, Series 4

Aquaculture id Australia's fastest growing primary industry. Product from fish farms is currently valued at $399 million, forecast to exceed $5oo million by 2000.

Whilst the figure pales into insignificance alongside world production (about $45 billion) it does represent a huge window of opportunity for prospective investors and for Australian primary producers who are keen to diversify.

David Berry reports on the prospects for yabbie and marron farming in Western Australia.

Ribbons Of Blue, Martin Revell, Thelma Crook

Journal of the Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, Series 4

Ribbons of Blue is a water quality awareness program that involves schools and community groups in monitering local water bodies.

The concept originated in the Environmental Policy Planning section of the Office of Premier and Cabinet, in 1989. Martin Revell and Thelma cook outline the scope of the program and highlight some major achievements.

Land Capability Assessment For The Wellington-Blackwood Survey, Peter J. Tille

Resource management technical reports

This report has been produced to provide more detail on the land capability assessments presented in the Wellington-Blackwood Land Resources Survey (Tille 1996). In that report, the land capability of each of the soil-landscape subsystems has been summarised with a brief description. Capability ratings are provided here for each of the map units (including subsystem phases) which appear on the two map sheets (Tille et al. 1996) accompanying the Wellington-Blackwood Land Resources Survey.