River Risk Ratings – Historic Stress Rivers Assessment (1990s)

We’re pleased to announce the release of the River Risk Ratings – Historic Stress Rivers Assessment (1990s) dataset on the SEED Open Data Portal.

This dataset represents one of NSW’s earliest statewide assessments of river stress. Developed under the original Stress Rivers Approach (SRA) during the 1990s, it classified rivers based on indicators such as water-extraction pressure and ecological condition. The assessment provides an important historical baseline for understanding how river condition and risk have been evaluated over the past three decades.

Why it matters

Understanding historical river condition is essential for tracking long-term environmental change, supporting evidence-based planning, and improving how we assess vulnerability across NSW river systems.

This dataset offers valuable context for researchers, planners, and water managers seeking to understand how river risk assessment has evolved — and how past methodologies inform our current and future approaches.

• Explore the collection: River Risk Ratings (Parent Dataset)
• View the dataset: Historic Stress Rivers Assessment (1990s)

Future releases in this series will include:

• River Risk Ratings – Historic Macro Risk Assessment (2000s)
• River Risk Ratings – Contemporary Risk Assessment (2016–Present)

We invite you to contribute to this forum!

We’d love to hear your thoughts on how these resources could support your work or research. Click Reply below to share your feedback, comments, and questions, and help shape better water management strategies for NSW by engaging with this SEED forum and dataset.