This PhD project is designed to develop a spatial approach to support the planning of the water quality in the areas subjected to bushfires, using a case study from the state of Victoria. In particular, this research involved the implementation of a hydrological model in order to predict the river water quality, to assist in the decision-making process.

The impact of bushfires on water quality can be highly variable for most of the individual water quality parametres. This variability is caused by a number of landscape influences and climatic factors, most notably rainfall. High magnitude and intense rainfall events soon after fire generate the largest impacts on water quality and sometimes trigger extreme erosion events.