Barwon Water is the water authority responsible for servicing Apollo Bay, Skenes Creek and Marengo. The town of Apollo Bay, on the south west coast of Victoria, is supplied with water from the Barham River via an annual bulk entitlement of 365 ML. During the last three sumers, this entitlement hsa lead to limiatations to the availability of water from this town. Therefore to reduce the likelihood of future water shortages, Barwon Water intendeds applying to the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) to increase the annual bulk water entitlement to 600ML.

The project was conducted in two distinct stages. Stage 1 involved a review of available information on the environmental status of the catchment with respect to ecology, hydrology, geomorphology and water quality. Stage 2 included undertaking a more detailed study in order to develop recommendations for the environmental water requirements of the Barham River in the project area. Specificially, the detailed environmental flow recommendations were documented along with the justification for the selection of the magnitude, duration and frequency for the site.