Estuary Index Rating

Rating of indicators or indices of condition or pressure into a colour scale is a visual tool for communicating relative health and pressures between indicators, estuaries, regions or state-wide. All indicators of estuary condition were rated on a five colour scale of dark green, light green, yellow, orange and red representing (respectively) very good, good, fair, poor and very poor condition (see Estuary Condition Rating System metadata). All indicators of estuary pressure were also rated on a similar green to red colour scale representing very low, low, moderate, high and very high pressure (see Estuary Pressure Rating System metadata). Where sufficient data were available, ratings for individual indicators within an estuary were integrated into an overall condition or pressure index for each estuary. Again where sufficient data were available, an overall rating was given for each indicator in a reporting region and state-wide together with an overall condition or pressure rating for all estuaries within a region and state-wide. Any integrated indices were scored using the same green-red colour scale with the addition of a numeric score between 5 and 1 respectively. Ratings and colour scales have been incorporated into reports on estuary condition and pressure called State of the Catchments 2010 reports available on the OEH website.