Using photographs to document environmental change: the effects of dams on the riparian environment of the lower Ord River

Abstract

A series of photographs, mostly taken between 1952 and 1990 at three sites on the lower Ord River, Kimberley Region, Western Australia, was used to demonstrate that photographs can be used to describe environmental change in situations where there are no documented records. This study examined changes to riparian vegetation caused by the construction of two dams. The study has important implications for development of water allocation plans. In the post-dam era, relative hydrological stability brought about by curtailment of large floods and provision of perpetual flow in a once-seasonal river has allowed extensive development of emergent aquatic and fringing woodland communities throughout the study reach. The emergent aquatic communities and most of their component species were previously absent but the tree component of fringing woodland communities comprises species that were present before the dams were constructed, albeit in isolated, sheltered pockets. Limitations to the use of photographs included absence of any images through the first 50 years of pastoral use of the area, limited number of sites that attracted photographers and limits to the discernible detail (e.g. identity of species, even most trees, in landscape images).