Hobart Rivulet Vegetation Management Plan

Hobart Rivulet Park and the Rivulet Track are very popular, highly used and greatly valued by the local and wider Hobart community and visitors. There is now a vegetation management plan for Hobart Rivulet (downstream of Strickland Avenue to Molle Street) and for its tributaries Guy Fawkes Rivulet and Ross Rivulet.

The plan provides a prioritised framework for the City, community volunteers and contractors to undertake willow and other weed removal and subsequent revegetation with locally native plants. The vegetation management plan is already providing a program of works for a new Bushcare Group, which formed after a highly successful National Tree Day community revegetation event on Hobart Rivulet, at a site that had been cleared of willows after a successful Tasmanian Weed Action Fund grant application.

Several sections of the rivulets are smothered by thickets of Crack willow (Salix fragilis). This Weed of National significance exacerbates flooding by reducing natural turbulence, eddies and deep pools because it smothers the streambed and banks with dense roots. Willows reduce water quality when the deciduous leaves drop into the water and reduce oxygen levels, and willows degrade habitat value and pushed out native plant and animal species. However, money spent on removing willows can be wasted if there is no follow-up work to remove willow regrowth and revegetate with locally native plants.

The actions set out in the plan will assist in future-proofing the waterways by increasing their water carrying capacity, improving water quality, increasing streambank stability, providing habitat for local wildlife and restoring the riparian corridor.

Hobart Rivulet Vegetation Management Plan(PDF, 13MB)