Australia versus the World: do we face special opportunities and challenges in restoring Australian streams?

Australians do face special opportunities and challenges in attempting to r estore or rehabilitate their streams, when compared with Western Europe and North America. Some of these differences arise from the physical and ecolo gical character of our streams, particularly in terms of flow variability, stream power, sediment, vegetation interactions, and nutrient levels. We al so have modest resources available per-unit-length of stream, and no massiv e freshwater fishing industry. These, and many other differences, combine t o produce an environment in which it can be slower and more difficult to re habilitate streams, and we have less confidence in the results. Internation al case studies are tremendously useful but in some cases we need to be cir cumspect in applying the results directly to Australian streams.