| Location: | South Central Victoria |
| Traditional Owners: | Bunurong, Gunaikurnai, Taungurung, Wadawurrung, and Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung peoples |
| Regional body: | Melbourne Water |
| Area: | 12,800 km2 |
| Catchments: | Werribee River, Maribyrnong River, Yarra River and Bunyip River and Dandenong Creek |
| Population centres: | Melbourne, Healesville, Gisborne, Baccus Marsh, Melton, Warburton |
| Local government areas: | Moorabool, Greater Gelong, Wyndham, Melton, Macedon Ranges, Hume, Brimbank, Hobsons Bay, Merri-bek, Melbourne, Moonee Valley, Darebin, Boroondara, Port Phillip, Glen Iira, Yarra, Banyule, Whittlesea, Nillumbuk, Manningham, Whitehorse, Monash, Bayside (vic), Kingston (Vic), Manningham, Knox, Casey, Greater Dandenong, Frankston, Mornington Peninsula, Bass Coast, Cardinia, South Gippsland, Baw Baw, Yarra Ranges |
| Dominant land uses: | Grazing (35%), Conservation (16%) and Urban+Other landuses (31%) |
The Port Phillip and Western Port Natural Capital Region covers the Victorian natural resource management region centred on Melbourne, Port Phillip Bay and Western Port. Its major waterways include the Werribee, Maribyrnong, Yarra and Bunyip rivers and Dandenong Creek. The region is known for the extensive metropolitan area of Melbourne and its 5.4 million residents and Melbourne Water manages its waterways and also acts as the catchment management authority. The region stretches 130km north to south and 170km east to west.
Dissolved inorganic nitrogen generated
tonnes per year
Fine sediment generated
kilotonnes per year
Woody vegetation cover
square kilometres
Riparian and wetland woody vegetation cover
square kilometres
Explore the current condition in the interactive condition report below – Click on a sub-catchment to view a report on the natural capital measures for that sub-catchment in the ‘report’ tab.
Choose the natural capital measures that are important to you – Select the ‘hotspot’ tab and check the indicators that are important to you. Then view measures that are aggregated and range standardised from the highest to the lowest value across the sub-catchments (red for worst and blue for best). By simultaneously considering multiple natural capital measures you can instantly see where the greatest opportunities for natural capital improvement are.
One of the most common uses of Natural Capital Region is to prioritise what to do and where to do it and to forecast the future natural capital condition under alternative nature repair investment programs.
The rapid scenario creation and running allows for the development of co-operative investment strategies that include the priorities of multiple partners (e.g. NRM organisations, federal government, state government and local government).
To facilitate this rapid scenario generation, Natural Capital Region includes region-specific libraries of tens of possible on-ground actions. Each action includes their effectiveness for improving natural capital outcomes, the cost per hectare of the action and the likelihood of adoption of each action.
To demonstrate, a simple investment scenario is embedded below.
| Budget: | $50,000,000 |
| Area: | All sub-catchments |
| Positive Actions: | Terrestrial and riparian revegetation nature repair and conservation actions (protecting remnant vegetation and native revegetation replanting) |
| Negative Actions: | Do not consider the implications of negative actions (e.g. excluding impacts of ongoing clearing or urban expansion) |
| Maximum area per sub-catchment: | Set the maximum area for each action per sub-catchment as 2% of the available area for that action (spread the investment across several actions) |
| Adoption likelihood: | Use likely landholder adoption rates (includes total proportion of landholders and time to achieve adoption) |
| Priorities: | Prioritise based on biodiversity and carbon sequestration outcomes Include economies of scale to favour actions in catchments where there is high availability of land to do the actions |
Explore the scenario results spatially – Click sub-catchments on the map to see the cost breakdown over time and by sub-catchment.
Explore the marginal cost abatement – This shows where the rate of improvement vs cost starts to flatten off. Hover over the chart to see a breakdown of each suggested action by sub-catchment with the associated co-benefits of the action quantified.
Natural Capital Region forecasts a potential future state by considering alternative on-ground actions. A critical step in this process is compiling the data to establish the baseline condition for the region.
Metadata for the indicators (and groupings used in Action set up) included in the Port Phillip and Western Port (Victoria) instance of Natural Capital Region have been thoroughly documented.
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Truii acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.
